Houses of tomorrow

At 600 square feet, the solar powered DALE, or Dynamic Augmented Living Environment, is a micro house capable of big things.
DALE has the ability to break down into modules that can expand to three times its size or contract depending on the changing climate in order to take advantage of the Southern California weather. It was designed there by a team of undergraduate and graduate students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the California Institute of Technology.
"With this project, we're trying to get the word out there and promote sustainable building," says Nicole Violani, a team member and SCI-Arc graduate student. "We're trying to tell people that this house is affordable, and a family can actually live here."
No longer just a buzzword, sustainability has become a driving force for architecture and design schools across the world. Nearly 65% of architecture deans in North America consider sustainable design as one of the most significant changes in course offerings over the past five years, according to a survey released last month by the Design Futures Council.
And every two years, the very tangible results of green design, such as DALE, are showcased in the U.S.Manufacturing customized solar street lighting and solar street lamps for a wide range of lighting applications. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, a biennial competition that gives 20 colleges the opportunity to design and build solar-powered homes to be put on display.
In the past, the homes built for the decathlon, which will be held in October in Irvine, Calif., had been characterized by their sleek design and maximized energy efficiency. Yet since the addition of the affordability contest in 2011, in which teams earn points for keeping building costs under $250,000, students are designing with accessibility in mind.
"The cost of solar technologies has decreased significantly," Christina Kielich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy, explained in an e-mail, citing cost reductions that have resulted from the inclusion of energy management systems, LED lighting and newer Energy Star appliances.
George Dodds chairs the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's graduate architecture program. He says there is "no question about it" that today's students are demanding to learn about regenerative design.Soli-lite provides the world with high-performance solar roadway and solar street lighting solutions.
"Just as home buyers are now consciously looking for more energy efficient, or even energy-neutral houses, so too are students motivated to learn about new and emerging trends in sustainable design from the scale of a room to entire neighborhoods," Dodds says.
Despite green building's futuristic reputation,We installed flexible LED Strip lighting in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. this kind of design is hardly a high concept, Dodds says, citing several recent studies that suggest the bulk of future homes will be designed with environmental concerns in mind.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
"Developers are moving in this direction, and quickly, because consumers are demanding it," he says. "There is nothing futuristic about an energy-zero house. Once they become more repetitive, they will become even cheaper and available as starter homes.We offer solar photovoltaic system and commercial incentives to encourage our customers to install solar energy systems. With tax credits, it's an even easier sell."
As sustainable architecture and design takes off, the field may find itself transforming from the problem into the solution.
The private building sector consumes nearly half of all energy produced in the USA, and produced nearly half of all carbon emissions in 2010, more than either the transportation or industry sectors, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Read the full story at www.indoorilite.com!