Gather 'round children.
Try not to get too overwhelmed with excitement.
It's that special time again - that's right. I'm talking SOLAR DECATHLON 2011
For those of you who aren't familiar, the solar decathlon is a bi-annual event where student design teams from all over the world compete to show off innovative sustainable concepts. I have to say, instead of the usual clunky, mechanical attempts, this year there was a much stronger focus on aesthetics and spatial layout. I'm not saying there weren't any cheap tricks or gimmicks, but they seem to have taken on a much more subtle embodiment. Favorites were:
"Brett and Jermaine's Bach Pad"
"Sustainable Design: A new film by Ken Burns"
"Greening Up with the Joneses"
However, there were also some that I think got a little too wrapped up in concept:
"Don't you WANT to live in Ronchamp?"
The winner was the entry from the University of Maryland, which focused mainly on the ecological impacts of the wetlands and water resources in addition to the solar requirement of the competition. Is it beautiful? Sure. Is it well designed? Absolutely. But, I grew up in Maryland, and live here now, so you can't tell me you're putting your house in a wetland with grey water on site and then state that bugs won't be a god damn nightmare. If you have ever spent more than 3 minutes of Assateague Island, you know what I'm talking about. That and the fact that this house is almost entirely custom construction, bringing up the accuracy of calling it "modular". Modular design implies a certain level of production cost, which at the end of the day, is misleading to the viewer (and also probably to a buyer).
So in conclusion: U of M house- winner but not my favorite. Then again it's possible that I was more influenced by the order in which I saw the houses. Or I could just be a hater and haters gonna hate. Decide for yourself:
Ooo nice recap, Cormy. I was debating heading down there with my mum last weekend, but I heard you can wait in line for hours for one house. I figured a 3 hour drive each way was not worth seeing one house. And I just watched the Ronchamp video... I hate when people say things like, "it's made of concrete so in the day it absorbs heat and at night it releases it into the space.." as if that's some magical dreamy solution to heating - stupid mechanical engineers, overlooking this simple concept all these years! for real though, how many concrete buildings have you ever occupied that release this magic warmth at night? I feel if you are going to make such outrageous claims, maybe at least make an outrageous diagram so i can pretend to believe you researched this. I guess not much has changed since we were in school - the only obstacle we had to design around was gravity! Code? Mah! ADA? Bah! Clients? Hah!
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