Your mission - to build Europe's most energy efficient house

The University of Nottingham is to represent Britain in an international competition to design, build and test drive Europe's most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient, zero carbon, solar-powered house.

A team of architecture and engineering students from the Department of the Built Environment are taking on 18 universities from across the world in the very first Solar Decathlon Europe which will be staged in Madrid between June 18 and 27 2010.

Britain's entry — The Nottingham HOUSE — is a full scale highly marketable, zero carbon starter home. It will showcase the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design. Built in partnership with the construction materials company Saint-Gobain, it will demonstrate how low energy architecture can lend itself to the mass market. The L-shaped design is so versatile it can be worked in terraces, rows or stacked as apartments.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Fine Arts & Design
• Architecture
• Environment
• Building
• Eco
• Nottingham
• Nottingham_House
• Solar_Decathlon
• Madrid
• Built_Environment

[DnBrmg89]

How is that energy efficient? There are plenty of projects that I have seen that may put a little more energy into the build but have a far greater return.

[bmpowellicio]

Ummm...some of those spaces are a bit tight. There is far too much circulation space, it doesn't really need to be three storeys despite the daft Code for Smelly Homes. High ceilings simply allow hot air to rise, which is fine for overheating conditions, which you seem to have in spades, but not in our winters. Looks like this house will have horrible summer overheating. Ventilating like crazy with hot air drawn from outside is not a bright move. But I do like the sheltered outdoor space.

[buzdjow]

Oooh, with those intelligent arrows you have convinced me! Nice design, certainly not the ecobunker that that 'Europe's most efficient' claim would suggest...

[1888junkteam]

excellent work!

[1888junkteam]

excellent work!

[EcoDecorator]

It just shows what can be done! But is the paint environmentally friendly also??