SOLAR ECLIPSE
The two-year Solar Decathlon saga came to an end this weekend with Cornell’s Silo House in 7th place overall. Team Germany won the competition again with a power-churning photovoltaic box and Illinois claimed second with their well-insulated “vernacular” mobile home.
It would be a lie to say that these results were well received by Cornell or the architectural community. The Solar Decathlon competition – which has always been extremely restrictive – seemed to be rewarding the wrong things. Brawny photovoltaic systems collected a windfall of points whereas creative architectural solutions were all but overlooked.
Cornell team members returned to Ithaca this week proud of their accomplishments but frustrated with the competition. In an attempt to shed light on the situation, the Cornell Daily Sun asked me to write an article exploring some key issues. My feeble attempt at doing so appeared in today’s paper and is linked below:
Shock and disbelief were the only two feelings stronger than nausea when judges announced the results for architecture at the recent Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. After a two-year, Herculean effort, Cornell’s Solar Decathlon team (CUSD) had produced an innovative house of remarkable craftsmanship. Its peculiar form and materiality exerted an uncanny architectural magnetism, attracting the press and public and eliciting praise and pride from everyone involved.
So it came as a surprise last week when this dynamic work of architecture earned 16th place in a pool of 20 solar-powered homes >> go to full article
October 26th, 2009 at 10:37
Tim Liddell: blogger, journalist, drinker of fine wines and eater of dark chocolate. I aspire to be you…really sucks to her about the Solar Decathlon house though, especially as it was such an architecturally impressive piece. If someone had to do well though, it might as well have been Illinois…
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