ROOM IN THE SUN

I wonder if they would stand a chance in suburban markets where so much of the housing stock is cookie-cutter Colonial or gaudy mini-mansion.

The competition winner, designed by Germany8217;s Technische Universitat Darmstadt, was a stunner, in no small part because it didn8217;t look like a solar house. There were no impossible-to-ignore shiny solar panels attached to the roof, no appendages jutting into the sky. This house was stealthily solar, without ducts or mechanical structures announcing its techno-geek heart.

The flat-roofed, rectangular house looked like a fine piece of furniture, with the exterior clad completely in fine-grained German oak. Solar panels were integrated into the slats of floor-to-ceiling wooden shutters on the east, south and west sides of the house. On the north side, in the sun8217;s shadow, the shutters lacked solar panels. A computer could change the tilt of the slats to catch the sun8217;s rays and generate electricity throughout the day, storing as much as possible for use at night.

The shutters8217; dual purpose, shading and insulating the interior while generating electricity from the sun, reflects the twin tasks of a solar house. It is as important to conserve energy as it is to generate it. Design competitions such as the Decathlon are intended to hasten the marketability and affordability of green technologies and solar-power generation.

Construction cost for the German house was as stunning as the appearance, even when you consider that it was a prototype. According to the university8217;s website, materials and construction alone cost 733,444. That works out to about 917 per sq ft8212;outrageously expensive. Compare that to the 448,470 cost, or about 561 per sq ft, for the house built by the University of Maryland, which won second place.

Like the German house, Maryland8217;s entry included some floor-to-ceiling exterior shutters, but without the photovoltaic louvers. Could such shutters be the start of a design trend?

Beazer Homes USA, headquartered in Atlanta, helped build Georgia Tech8217;s entry in the decathlon. According to Tony Callahan, senior vice president for national purchasing, planning and design at Beazer, we can expect more solar energy and other green building features to appear in new homes soon, especially as energy costs rise. Fans of the center-hall Colonial will be pleased to know he thinks those features will come to market in traditional forms of residential architecture.

8220;It8217;s getting more streamlined to where it8217;s more aesthetically pleasing from a curb appeal standpoint,8221; he said.

Callahan said he expects consumers to be receptive to solar-power features as they realise that the lower living expenses will offset some of the technology8217;s cost. 8220;As more adopt the technology, the price will come down to where it will be mainstream.8221;

While solar energy would be feasible in a large house, the prototypes on the Mall were restricted to about 800 sq ft. The ones I saw had one bedroom, one bathroom and not much storage space. But many were designed with the idea that other modules could be added or taken away as the occupant8217;s needs changed.

8220;You can have a 3,000-sq-ft house that is solar,8221; Callahan said, 8220;but I think homes are going to get smaller from a green standpoint.8221;

On the dusty Mall, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the small outdoor gardens, some irrigated with rain collected from the roof, felt like a refuge. New homes could use more of these affordable, human-sensitive design features now, while we wait for solar technologies to become more versatile and affordable.

-Elizabeth Razzi
The Washington Post