2009 Solar Decathlon | SIAT Students Help Design a Solar Powered House

posted: june 14. 2008

VIEW THE BOOK HERE:

Flash: www.morethangreen.org/northhouse/

PDF: www.morethangreen.org/northhouse/NorthHouse.pdf

WATCH THE VIDEOS HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqwCRpkIVXQ&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwcMs_V3XqM&feature=related

Download CDRN Press Release Here

Read the Granville Magazine article here

Students and faculty from Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) join with colleagues from the University of Waterloo and Ryerson University to design a high-tech, solar-powered house. The house will join others on The Mall in Washington, DC, as part of the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon.

The building, NORTH HOUSE, will be entered in the 2009 Solar Decathlon, where it will compete against houses designed by 19 other North American universities.

Each of the three universities brings something unique to the project. Waterloo is leading the project and concentrating on off-grid housing and responsive structure and "skin", Ryerson will contribute energy modeling and analysis, while SFU will develop an “adaptive living interface” that allows the house’s occupants to adjust energy settings easily through touch controls built into the walls or remotely via cellphone and computer. Reflecting its strengths in design, SIAT will create publicity materials, including a website, interpretative signage and a graphic identity for the project.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are using the Decathlon to encourage the broad adoption of sun-powered homes. The entrants will be presented to the general public in a “solar village” outside the Smithsonian Institution in Oct 2009. Team North, as the SFU/Waterloo/Ryerson co-operative is called, hopes that NORTH HOUSE will then be displayed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Leading SIAT’s efforts will be professors Ron Wakkary and Rob Woodbury. Wakkary is renowned for his work on user interfaces (he is currently collaborating with the Surrey Museum on an interactive multi-user museum guide). Woodbury, the scientific director for the Canadian Design Research Network, heads the advisory committee for Team North.

The project's outcome will be viewed by more than 300,000 people at the Solar Decathlon event and potentially by many more in its permanent display location (the location is under negotiation). North House is an exciting project to raise funds and opportunities for students. Team North is negotiating with a major Canadian company for financial support and student internships. Students active in the project will experience a complex and highly visible design effort, gain experience valuable to future employers and perhaps shape future careers in sustainable design.

SIAT will integrate the project into a fourth-year interdisciplinary course and is also proposing new undergraduate and graduate courses in sustainable design.

The following are SIAT students involved in this project:

SIAT Graduate students:
Davis Marques
Karen Tanenbaum
Kevin Muise
Jason Boileau
Roham (Mehdi) Sheikholeslami

SIAT Undergraduate Students:
Simon Kwok
Jin Fan
Christine Poh

"Team North joins three schools in the challenge of a house for Canada's future. Waterloo, SFU and Ryerson together have the expertise needed to inspire imagination by design, to ensure sound engineering and construction and to communicate the ideas of sustainable living to the world. I am equally sure that the house will be extraordinary and that we will learn much from each other. This is collaboration at its best."

- Rob Woodbury

"This announcement brings well-deserved recognition to Drs. Wakkary and Woodbury, SIAT, and to SFU. The project extends beyond disciplinary and institutional boundaries and exemplifies the type of collaborative research that is a defining feature of SFU. We are excited to lend our individual and collective strengths to the emerging area of environmental research, which is one of our university's major strategic research directions."

- Mario Pinto

/ original post january 22. 2008; last updated june 14. 2008