Students’ sustainable home design advances to finals in national contest
A design that relies primarily on the sun, wind and natural light to provide a comfortable interior environment earned a “finalist” designation for a group of students from all three School of Architecture departments who are competing in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon attached housing category.
In mid-April 2023, the students, led by Dr. Liliana Beltran, associate professor of architecture, will present their design in the contest’s final competition at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado.
To create their design, which is for a site in Vietnam, the students collaborated with Hanoi University of Civil Engineering faculty and students, as well as Vietnam’s Ministry of Construction.
The students and their degree programs, are: Luming Xiao, team leader, Ph.D. Architecture; Ghayda Alhabib, and Antonio Vasquez Molinary, Ph.D. architecture; Sejal Shanbhag, Master of Science in Construction Management; Na Wang, Master of Landscape Architecture, and Nhu Quynh Le, Chloe Li, and Jumana Naser, Bachelor of Environmental Design.
The 10 contests that are the foundation of the Solar Decathlon challenge students to design and build high-performance, low-carbon buildings that mitigate climate change and improve the quality of life through greater affordability, resilience, and energy efficiency. The winners are those teams that best blend architectural and engineering excellence with innovation.
