Sci-Arc
Inside SCI-Arc
Contact Us
If you are interested in sponsoring the team, please contact:

Elisabeth Neigert
Public Relations & Development
elisabeth_neigert@sciarc.edu

Reed Finlay
Project Manager
reed_finlay@sciarc.edu


Get to know the project

SCI-Arc Exhibition
A permanent exhibition of the proposal is on display at SCI-Arc.

National Building Museum
Washington D.C.
The conceptual designs of the 20 collegiate teams participating in the 2011 Solar Decathlon are on display at the National Building Museum through July 25.

Santa Monica ArtBuild Expo, May 7-8 A SCI-Arc/Caltech booth was on view at the AltBuild Expo in Santa Monica.

2011 Solar Decathlon - SCI-Arc/Caltech Team

An academic team from SCI-Arc and Caltech will compete in the elite international 2011 Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Drawing on the talents of architecture students at SCI-Arc and engineering students at Caltech, the team will design and build a solar-powered house to be displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Selection for participation in the competition comes with a $100,000 grant to be used toward the project. The team will spend the next year and a half working on the house, which will be exhibited and judged in October 2011.

The SCI-Arc/Caltech Team is the first from Southern California selected for the 20-team competition, held every other year. In addition to other U.S. teams chosen for the 2011 decathlon, there are finalists from Belgium, Canada, China, and New Zealand. Top honors in the 2009 and 2007 competitions went to German teams.

THE TEAM

The SCI-Arc/Caltech team was formed in October when students from SCI-Arc who had been preparing an application for the decathlon approached their counterparts at Caltech. Caltech had been considering entering the competition and within days the connection was made. In early November, students from the two schools met at the Corner Bakery in Pasadena to put together a plan—including how to quickly gain full support from each institution and develop strategies to make the project successful. The team navigated those challenges in time to complete its application by the Nov. 15 deadline.

Lead students in the project from SCI-Arc are Reed Finlay, project manager, and Elisabeth Neigert, public relations and fundraising; from Caltech, lead students are Fei Yang, thermal engineering, and Ben Kurtz, solar engineering. Lead faculty members at SCI-Arc are architects Wes Jones, sponsor, and Dwayne Oyler, co-sponsor. From Caltech, lead faculty members are engineers Harry Atwater, sponsor, and Doug Caldwell, co-sponsor.

Key support at SCI-Arc has come from Eric Owen Moss, Ming Fung, director of graduate programs, and Jamie Bennett, chief operating officer. At Caltech, key support has come from Jean-Lou Chameau, president, Melanie Hunt, vice-provost, and Nate Lewis and Harry Gray, faculty co-sponsors.

At SCI-Arc, a design studio with 19 students led by Jones developed a conceptual model for the project—which organizers called for in addition to the initial application; Oyler led a corresponding design seminar. At Caltech, an independent seminar was taught around the project by Caldwell, a chief engineer in renewable energy, and Atwater, a leading expert in photovoltaic technology. Both schools plan additional integration of the project into the curriculum.

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THE DESIGN/CH:IP

The conceptual model, named CH:IP/Compact House: Increasing Possibility, combines a minimal footprint with solar technology for a house that could fit into various urban locations.

The DOE grant of $100,000 covers only a portion of the cost of participating in the decathlon and additional funds will be raised by the team for the project. Construction of the house will take place on the grounds of SCI-Arc, which is located in the Arts District on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles.

An exhibition of the proposal will be on display at SCI-Arc, beginning April 19. At Caltech, there will be an exhibit on Earth Day, April 22. The team will also have a booth at the AltBuild Expo in Santa Monica, May 7-8.

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The Solar Decathlon Contests

Like the Olympic decathlon, the 2011 Solar Decathlon consists of 10 contests, which are designed to gauge how well the houses perform and how livable and affordable they are.

The 10 Solar Decathlon 2011 contests are:

  • Architecture contest (juried)
    Teams are required to design and build attractive, high-performance houses that integrate solar and energy-efficient technologies seamlessly into the design. Points are awarded for architectural elements, holistic design, lighting, inspiration and documentation.
  • Market Appeal contest (juried)
    Each team will build its house for a target client of its choosing. The Market Appeal jury will evaluate the responsiveness of the house design to the characteristics and requirements of the target client, taking into consideration livability, marketability and buildability.
  • Engineering contest (juried)
    The houses competing in the Solar Decathlon will represent the best of modern engineering. For the Engineering contest, a jury of professional engineers will evaluate each house for functionality, efficiency, innovation, reliability and documentation.
  • Communications contest (juried)
    From team websites to signage and public tours on the National Mall, the communications contest challenges teams to educate others about their houses, their experiences, and their projects. Teams will receive points for delivering clear and consistent messages, images that represent the vision, process and result of each project, and creativity in engaging audiences.
  • Affordability contest (juried)
    The affordability contest encourages teams to design and build affordable houses that combine energy-efficient construction and appliances with renewable energy systems. In this way, the teams will demonstrate how energy-saving features can help consumers save money today. A professional estimator will determine the construction cost of each house.
  • Comfort Zone contest (measured)
    Teams design their houses to keep temperature and humidity steady, uniform, and comfortable. Full points are awarded for maintaining narrow temperature and relative humidity ranges during specified periods of time.
  • Hot Water contest (measured)
    This contest assesses whether a house's water heating system can supply all the hot water needed for daily washing and bathing. Teams score points by successfully completing several daily 15-gallon "hot water draws," with the goal to deliver 15 gallons of hot water in 10 minutes or less.
  • Appliances contest (measured)
    This contest is designed to mimic the appliance use of an average U.S. home. Points are earned for refrigerating and freezing food, washing and drying laundry, and running the dishwasher.
  • Home Entertainment contest (measured and juried)
    The home entertainment contest gauges whether a house has what it takes to be a home. How well does it accommodate the pleasures of living, such as sharing meals with friends and family, watching movies in a home theater, and surfing the Web? How well does it accommodate a small home office for a telecommuter?
  • Energy Balance contest (measured)
    In the energy balance contest, a team receives full points for producing at least as much energy as its house needs, thus achieving a net energy consumption of zero during contest week.

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RELATED LINKS

Read news item on www.sciarc.edu.
Read news feature on www.caltech.edu.
Read the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon website—featuring news, project photos and other competition details.
Visit the SCI-Arc/Caltech page on www.solardecathlon.gov.

MEDIA ROOM

Read the story on Inhabitat.com >>
Read article in Architect's Newspaper >>
Read feature in Curbed LA >>
Read feature on Dexinger.com >>
Read news item in Pasadena Star-News >>
Read post on SoCalMinds.com >>
Read story in Whittier Daily News >>

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Director's Message

Dear friends:

We're extremely proud that the SCI-Arc/Caltech team has advanced to the next stage of the federally sponsored Solar Decathlon competition, which will conclude with the construction of the most progressive new building and energy related typologies on display on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

Prefabrication is an enduring subject for architects. SCI-Arc has no interest in simply reiterating that long-running discussion.

We're very much aware that the topic of sustainability in housing and its social and political consequences has become an international topic, central to the discourse on new uses and applications of alternative energy systems.

We expect the SCI-Arc/Caltech team not only to sustain these progressive social and political aspirations, but to orchestrate them and to integrate energy concerns in an abstract technical sense with the human concerns of day-to-day livability.

We anticipate the work of the team will be speculative and creative, and that it will contribute significantly to the evolving redefinition of the interrelationship of housing, construction technology, energy efficiency, and the sociology of housing.

We at SCI-Arc intend to support the work effort of our design and engineering team in whatever manner is required, to enable these most imaginative of students to produce an extraordinary and precedent setting result.

See you on the Mall.

--Eric Owen Moss