Virginia Tech's FutureHAUS will travel to Dubai to compete in a solar decathlon. (Photo by Jeffrey Ocampo)
Being able to order parts of your house online and have them shipped to your door might seem a little far-fetched, but a team of students and faculty from Virginia Tech thinks it might be the future of housing.
In November, the team will travel to Dubai as the only team from the United States to compete in the Solar Decathlon Middle East 2018, a solar house building competition. The decathlon pits Tech’s team, and its solar house, dubbed FutureHAUS, against 17 other collegiate teams from around the world.
The house’s most unique attribute is its “cartridges”: Each component of the house is built separately, and then put together on site. “You’d build a house similar to how you’d build a car,” says Matthew Boys, one of the team's members. In this case, factories would assemble each cartridge before the cartridge is shipped to its destination.
Boys, born and raised in Richmond, joined the team in fall 2017 to help with the logistics of transporting FutureHAUS, first built in Blacksburg, to Dubai for the competition. He had interned previously as a student at Virginia Tech with Dominion Energy for three summers; now he works there as a field construction coordinator, and was able to secure a $150,000 grant from Dominion. Kohler and DuPont are the other primary sponsors of the Virginia Tech team.
Decathlon team member Matthew Boys, a Virginia Tech alumnus now working for Dominion Energy, stands in the kitchen at FutureHAUS. (Photo by Jeffrey Ocampo)
As its name indicates, the solar decathlon consists of 10 different challenges, such as architecture, energy efficiency and innovation, in which each solar house must compete. “It’s not just, ‘Build a house with the most solar panels,’” says Boys. For instance, on a given day, a team might be required to charge an electric car, run a washing machine or run a shower in a set time period. Each category will be judged independently, and teams must score well in each to win the competition.
In Dubai, the goal is for FutureHAUS to be net-positive with regard to energy — meaning the solar panels will produce more energy than the house actually uses. “They only get about three or four days of rain a year,” making Dubai a city particularly well-suited for solar energy, says Boys.
“If it performs like we believe it will, it’ll raise a lot of eyebrows,” says Boys. The winning team’s house will be presented at the 2020 World Trade Fair, and if FutureHAUS wins, Virginia Tech hopes to tour it around the United States. FutureHAUS, Boys believes, will also have far-reaching impacts on the housing market. Consumers could order parts of their house and have them assembled elsewhere, and then shipped to their home fully built. He cites an example of a kitchen being designed, built and constructed on site for a client in just a week. The actual construction on the client’s home would only take a weekend. “That’s just mind-blowing,” says Boys.
Spectators explore the outdoor area of FutureHAUS. (Photo by Jeffrey Ocampo)
Readers can follow the Virginia Tech solar decathlon team’s progress on Twitter @FutureHAUSdubai and on Instagram @futurehausdubai.
