© Jim Tetro - Team Illinois

The teams try to balance three categories: solar energy, energy efficiency and aesthetics. Each category is then assessed separately and the winner is determined by overall points. Therefore, creating a house with only aesthetic design would be as detrimental as a perfectly efficient project with no aesthetic design. The goal of the competition is an aesthetically feasible design that meets energetic proficiency to demonstrate the potential of zero-energy homes. A zero-energy home is achieved by taking energy from the grid only when needed and selling energy back when in surplus to equal a net of zero within the given test period.

All the projects are prefabricated and assembled on site in just under 10 days by each team. This is an interesting approach in construction, not only in the field of energy efficiency but in the how and when. The implications of this competition can be seen beyond blue skies research. For example, the components could be produced in an industrial line fashion allowing developers to build fully functional net-zero houses in just a week. Making the home buying process similar to purchasing a car, and completely changing the way we approach the home building/purchasing process.

Another benefit of this contest is the need for multi-disciplinary collaboration including engineers, architecture students, and industry suppliers to promote an integrated or “whole building design” approach the project.

© Jim Tetro - Team California

The previous images were some of the pictures from the 2009 event. Team Germany, as shown in the first image won first place in the 2009 competition, Virgina Tech was second while Team California was awarded third for best overall architecture. Full gallery here

Below is a selection of some of the models for this summer competition. Though the models may give us an impression about design, how will they perform later depends on the numbers, as said above. Full gallery here. Bets are open! Who would you think will win? Leave your vote in the comment section below.

© Copyright 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe

© Copyright 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe

© Copyright 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe

As Jim pointed out in his article “Interbreeding Field” learning while making is a straightforward way of acquiring knowledge and experience that books and lectures cannot provide.

All the information used as a source for this article comes from the US Department of Energy (www.solardecathlon.org/) and SD Europe (www.sdeurope.org/) sites.

© Jaime Martin

As a wrap up of the show, I found the most successful installations were those where the interaction of the observer (and participant) caused immediate change in the output at an immersive scale. Smaller interactive installations failed slightly on this side: while exhibits such as ‘Flight 404 Solar’ had a brilliant concept, analyzing input sound and separating frequencies to create different responses in the output shapes, its size of 19 inches did not transmit as immersive of a feeling as the larger exhibits, and only one person could use it at a time. Therefore, the key to the most successful installations were larger scale projects and group interaction.

© Jaime Martin - Image Above: BODY PAINT, where shapes detected by an overhead camera are transformed into color shapes that remain for a few seconds, so the participant can virtually paint.

© Jaime Martin - Image Above - VIDEO GRID, a grid made from snapshots of everyone who comes close to the camera, playing in an endless loop.

Another installation perhaps less visited but with a more complex background to highlight was ‘Sensity’ by Stanza, where they placed sensors outside the V&A building to analyze sounds in real time and translate the results to a map where links are drawn based on similarities between the sources at a given moment of time.

Overall, I was not amazed by the current installations. Particularly, they were not brilliant by themselves although they are interesting and well presented. I feel they do represent a trend within the design world, an evolution where nothing seems to change respective to the previous years exhibit but rather, showing enormous change compared with 10 years ago.

As representatives of the pioneers in translating the newest interfaces such as touch screens or laser tracking and producing various innovative prototypes, some projects seemed merely proof-of-concept (here is the way to do this). However, they lacked a powerful concept behind their function. The organization recognizes this is the purpose of the exhibition, showing the way to others, establishing new tools for others to carry on with.

I guess my question is still – Will we see a spread in the use of networked interactive devices in the following years, or will this stay in the realm of curiosity?

© Jaime Martin

Visit the full gallery here

Decode is on show until the 11th of April, for more details visit Decode at V&A