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10/12/2009
Rice in Solar Decathlon's top 3
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To vote for ZEROW HOUSE as your favorite house and help elect it the People's Choice winners, text HOUSE14 to 99503 now! |
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Rice News staff
Rice University took second place in each of the first two events -- market viability and architecture -- of the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, an international student-competition to design and build houses powered entirely by the sun. The only school from Texas chosen to participate, Rice is one of the smallest represented as it goes up against schools with 10 times the number of students and teams with five times the budget.
Though the average cost of the 20 homes assembled on the National Mall for the competition is $490,000, the Rice house was only $140,000 so that its design and concepts could be replicated in Houston's Third Ward. Those future houses should cost only about $80,000 because they will not require building materials needed to secure the house for a 1,500-mile journey from Houston to Washington, D.C., and back.
"It's great to be recognized for the work we did, considering the permanent home of this house," said Roque Sanchez, Rice graduate student and engineering lead on the project. "We built and tailored this house for Houston and for the Third Ward. When faced with a decision, we always chose the material or product that was more affordable -- not what would look the coolest or win the competition. What mattered to us was the end result."
The end result is ZEROW HOUSE, an 800-square-foot home with a large deck and 550 square feet of interior living space. The house evolved from designs submitted by Rice School of Architecture graduate students Kathryn Pakenham and North Keeragool.
"We knew we wanted to design something affordable and sustainable," Pakenham said. "But we also wanted to keep to the tradition of a shotgun house so that it would fit in the neighborhood it's for. We submitted the conceptual design for ZEROW HOUSE and went from there. But there's no way we could have done this without the 150 other students who worked on it with us."
Keeragool also credited the whole team of students and faculty with helping him and Pakenham execute their design and live out their vision.
"We wanted to give respect to the community we were designing it for and create a concept that could be used again," he said. "We hope ZEROW HOUSE will contribute to the community in that the average consumer will look at it and see that they can make their own houses more sustainable."
The team is still buzzing with excitement. After all, they have been focusing on the end destination of ZEROW HOUSE at the corner of Francis Street and Bastrop Street in Houston, not the competition, which runs until Oct. 16. These two awards came as a pleasant surprise.
"We are all extremely ecstatic," Keeragool said. "It's amazing. It's incredible. Look at what we've spent and now what has come out of it. We've been an underdog in this competition. Then to get this kind of recognition. I'm speechless."
There are eight more competitions in which ZEROW HOUSE will perform. On Oct. 16, the Department of Energy will announce the overall competition winner. The team now has higher hopes. With these second-place awards, Rice is currently in the top three of overall standings.
For more information on ZEROW HOUSE and its design and engineering systems, visit http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=13181.
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