182 comments on DrumBeat: October 21, 2007
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182 comments on DrumBeat: October 21, 2007
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German team wins Solar decathlon 2007 on Washingtons National Mall.
"They were judged on whether they maintained a comfortable temperature, had adequate lighting, sufficient power for household appliances and home electronics, and hot water -- all produced using solar energy."
"The houses also had to power an electric vehicle."
I walked through the house yesterday. They did some interesting things, and not surprisingly the house had a definite "Euro" feel to it. My girlfriend thought it cold, plus the bed was buried in the floor, which to us seemed impractical.
The University of Maryland house won 2nd, and we found that to be much more comfortable feeling. Like you could just move in and feel at home.
For the purposes of the competition, the homes are limited to 800 square feet. I suppose that was to make it easier to transport the things to DC. Some people could live in that amount of space, others would feel the need for more. I guess it depends on how much stuff you have.
My sense is that the crowds were greater than they were 2 years ago. The waiting line for the German home was at least 30 minutes, similar wait for the Maryland house. There were some of the houses for which there were shorter lines, none had no lines.
Bear in mind that your "stuff" expands to fill the available space.
Hi ericy, thanks for your report (I am too far away, even from Darmstadt to be able to see the house myself).
To be honest: I liked the Maryland house better from the outside (from the pictures on the web site, of course). The winner from Darmstadt seemed a little like a rabbit cage to me, so I wondered why they were ranked highest from the view of architecture.
What a good idea.
Building houses and tearing them down a week later without anyone ever living in them. We'll save a hella lot of energy that way :)
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
We couldn't stand the wait for the German house last Sunday...at least 30 min, maybe more. The Maryland house was very comfortable, agreed, nice polish and attention to design. The kids there didn't seem as knowledgeable as the UC Boulder or MIT teams.
The whole thing was inspiring.
I saw the MIT house too - I guess because I went there. I have to admit that knowing the place, I wasn't expecting much from an aesthetic point of view. IIRC, they weren't there 2 years ago, so I suppose it isn't bad for a 1st effort.
It seems that a successful entry tends to have a good working relationship between engineering, architecture and interior design. Yeah, the house needs to be energy efficient and have the solar cells, and that part all needs to work. But given the 800 sq foot limitation, you cannot really have any wasted space either - you need a really good floor plan. And finally, the thing just needs to look comfortable.