Reaching for the Sun: The Solar Decathlon’s Parade of Homes by Wanda Urbanska

I bumped into Pat Mitchell, a retired law librarian from Annapolis, Maryland, as we stood in line to see enCORE, Ohio State University’s innovative entry into the 2011 Solar Decathlon of green homes. This, the fifth US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, was recently staged at West Potomac Park in Washington DC. A team of undergraduate and grad students from Ohio State had two years to design, conceptualize and build their innovative home, aimed at providing maximum livability and energy efficiency in a small footprint. “I’m here looking for inspiration but also for concrete knowledge and application,” Mitchell said.

The 19 competing teams from the United States and four foreign countries had just seven days to assemble their creations on site, including erecting the structures, activating their homes’ mechanical systems, decorating, landscaping and making the homes visually appealing to the tens of thousands of green-leaning tourists and troops of wide-eyed school children over a ten-day period. (Most of the kids headed straight for Appalachian State University’s Solar Homestead for the cool giveaway of the venue: a rectangular, aluminum-sided reflective hat, shaped like a soda jerk’s from the 1950s.)

One of the competition’s requirements was that each home incorporate solar energy features into its design. The homes ranged from Purdue University’s traditional-looking frame rancher, styled to blend seamlessly into a typical Midwestern neighborhood, to the downright quirky: a silver vinyl-quilted, insulation-wrapped angular oddity produced by a team from California Institute of Technology and Southern California Institute of Architecture. The resulting home, which resembled an oversized, cozy-covered toaster, perched at an angle leaving enough space to park a car under its shaded overhang. “Count on those eggheads from Cal Tech to come up with a house no one would ever want to live in,” commented one onlooker. “You can bet this place would never qualify for bank financing,” chimed in another.

The winning entry from the University of Maryland (pictured above) – which was inspired by the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem – featured a green roof on one section and a solar roof on the other. The twin roof sections were expertly angled to capture and slow rain-water runoff while filtering pollutants.

Ohio State entry in Solar decathalonFor my money, I was taken with Ohio State’s 870-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath entry, the aim of which was to “concentrate the functional systems in a central core.” To save power and space, enCORE’s mechanical systems were co-located in a compact central hub. The home – which was designed to maximize natural light – draws its juice from 108 solar panels, which are mounted on the sides of the house rather than its roof. “The air goes through the panels and is heated by the sun before getting into the house,” explained Trace Searles, an OSU team engineer. (A sustainability bonus: the house’s thin-film solar panels were manufactured regionally in nearby Toledo.)

New York enty in solar decathalonPat Mitchell steered me toward the City College of New York entry. “What’s interesting is that each house is unique, made for its specific environment,” she said. Team New York’s Solar Roofpod was designed to nest atop a mid-rise apartment building in Manhattan or one of the boroughs. Dubbed the “penthouse with a purpose,” the 750- square-foot home will enable its occupants to enjoy a roof garden while the structure produces solar power and absorbs rain water. The Roofpod’s inviting interior – featuring bamboo plywood walls and cork flooring – compares favorably to numerous dark studios I’ve seen in the City. Like many others in the Decathlon, this home minimizes bedroom space; its wall-mounted, queen-size Murphy bed is stowed away when not in use. “There are certain things you don’t need all the time, like a bed,” explained Alex Gurevich, an architect on the team.

The Roofpod’s solar panels power not only this home but contribute energy to the ones beneath it, he noted.

Thirteen-year-old Susanna McGrew, a student at Alice Deal Middle School in the District of Columbia, pronounced the Roofpod to be her favorite of the homes she’d seen. It looks pretty fantastic straddling the grass on the park, chimed in one of her friends. “Imagine what it would look like,” he added, “20 stories up the sky!”

If you missed the solar decathlon, go to your local library to learn more about the competition and seek additional resources. Ask your librarian to point you in the right direction.

Check out:

• 
  Learn more about the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon.
• Green from the Ground up: Sustainable, Healthy, and Energy-Efficient Home Construction
  by David Johnston and Scott Gibson, (Taunton: 2008).
• The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook: Slowing Climate Change & Saving Money
  by Godo Stoyke, (New Society: 2007).

Sustainability advocate Wanda Urbanska is author or coauthor of nine books, including “The Heart of Simple Living: 7 Paths to a Better Life” (Krause: 2010) and the newly published “Builders of Hope: A Social Entrepreneur’s Solution for Rebuilding America” (Blair: October 2011).

This work by @yourlibrary is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.