Team Boston Competing in Solar Decathlon
SOLAR
New Bedford Standard Times
Burcu Karakas
Boston University Washington News Service
October 14, 2009
WASHINGTON – Curio House, a project designed and built by students from Boston Architectural College and Tufts University, is competing this week in the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall.
Twenty teams have built solar-powered houses, which are being judged on 10 criteria. The winner will be announced Friday.
Jon Hanson, a 24-year-old Boston Architectural College undergraduate student, said Team Boston wanted to challenge people by asking questions about their lifestyles. The aim, he said, was to create curiosity in order to lead people toward a more sustainable way of living. The project is based on three elements: sustainability, affordability and adaptability.
All teams showcase energy-efficient, marketable, solar-powered homes during the exhibition week, which is open to the public on the Mall.
Hanson said they wanted to come up with the idea of a financially affordable and accessible house. The furniture for the house was designed so that it could be moved and stored when not in use, creating more living space in the Curio House.
An experimental heat glass is used for the windows, serving as a heat source and keeping the house warm. Seventy percent of the heat is coming from the glass, he said.
Hanson said visitors get excited when they see they can actually put all different parts of the energy-efficient technology into their own houses. He said some people even have shown serious interest in building the house.
Colin Booth, the project manager, said the team spent two years on the project. Booth, 28, is a full-time employee in an architecture firm in Watertown. He said his firm was very supportive of him during the whole process.
Roughly 300 students were involved in the project, working in different stages, such as financial control, marketing and the Web site. Booth said there were several classes or studios where the ideas were put together. Students brainstormed and researched the project; then, those who were dedicated stayed till the final step.
Booth said generating as much power as possible is a way to get points in the competition, but they did not completely follow this path. “We are not only trying to impress people, but also educate them,” he said.
The feedback they got from the visitors so far is really good, according to Booth. He said people are very happy to see a “normal house” among the others. He said an accessible house makes “far more sense,” because people get frustrated when they see they can’t adapt the technologies to their own houses.
Booth also said that students from the other teams were coming to Curio House in the evening to hang out and enjoy the free heat from the windows.
The event creates a great job opportunity for the students. They said recruiting is going on during the week. As people from several firms come to visit the houses, they give their business cards to the students.
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