As summer draws so quickly to a close, there is still a sunny spot on our horizon. Beginning on Columbus Day and running through that next week, 20 interdisciplinary teams, including 3 from overseas, will come to the nation’s capital to construct their solar-powered, 800-square-foot homes complete with kitchens, laundry areas, and home offices. They will compete by living everyday lives (though not overnight—federal law prohibits sleeping on the Capital Mall where the solar city will be built).
The teams include architecture, engineering, business, and communications students who look back at the first two Solar Decathlons, held in 2002 and 2005 for inspiration and lessons learned. They must plan, design, publicize, fund, assemble, test, transport, and reassemble their solar-powered homes—an effort that, for most, began as soon as the last competition ended. The Department of Energy is so supportive of this endeavor now that they stepped it up from every three years to the current plan of holding the competition every two years.
It wasn’t always so.
The first competition was on a shoestring, with the sponsors (including the AIA) pretty much creating the rules as we went along. The second competition went much more smoothly. But one school’s faculty (a fairly large university in North Carolina) informed its student team that they had to be back on campus for exams or they would fail the semester, and they left their uncompleted house sitting abandoned throughout the competition.
There are sure to be slips and spills again this year, but with one exception. This technology is no longer bleeding edge, it is leading edge. And these students are doing more than learning. They are teaching—public tours are a large part of the event. Expect a tremendous turnout on the Mall this fall. Visit the Solar Decathlon Web site. And, if you can, drop by to see it live. It’s really fantastic.
What do you think?
Comments (1)
The significance of the search for solutions, that never ending evolution, that expression of concept and form, the test in physicalness and the post project refinement that lies at the core of innovation and design is often neglected in the measure of progress and the creation of the desired future state of the art, once it is achieved. No one clearly recalls the struggles after the solution has come to form.
The only we we bring such change to our world is by what we do every day. The future arises from the aggregate of our collective choices, the truth is every success is achieved one day at a time.
The search for solutions to our great problems; such as the airplane or the submarine, or the light bulb, were frought with failure and calamity, but also success, at first in small measure and then in great leaps of progress and the search for self sustaining energy independant shelter will be no different and the outcome no less significant.
Although the search for solutions for new housing is of great significance the search for solutions to retrofit the existing residential infrastructure of our cities is the greater and more urgent problem. Do not ignore it.
The AIA has taken a leadership role. The change agents, the leaders of change, must first create a vision of the desired future. Then plot the course of inovation and design from where we are now to where we need to go. They must tirelessly communicate the urgency and bennefits of success.
As a profession we need to put the desired vision of the future city, as models and drawings and photo realistic renderings in front of our population. In much the same way as the dream of space flight was projected on the conciousness of the masses in the 1950's and 1960's. There is much for the AIA to do.
Champion every success. I encourage everyone who can to go to the mall and see what is built there. Publish the event as widely as possible for those who can not go.
Thanks,
Posted by Terry L. Walker, AIA | September 17, 2007 4:01 PM
Posted on September 17, 2007 16:01