Students' energy-efficient house designs compete in Solar Decathlon, Germans win
Germany wins the 2007 Solar Decathlon!. The blog Inhabitat has been covering the event:
It has just been announced that the German University, Technische Universität Darmstadt is the winner of this years Solar Decathlon competition! In order to win this prestigious design competition, the German team had to beat out a whole slew of American universities on U.S. turf (the National Mall in Washington DC). Frankly, however, we’re not surprised to see a winning design emerge from the land of high-quality engineering. And the Darmstadt Solar Decathlon house was a worthy winner of the coveted prize. The stunning solar house was simple, elegant, and extremely innovative in its use of solar shutters and fold-up interior space.
There's a gallery of the exterior of all the entries at the official site.
The first visual impression of the bunch is boxes, and shoeboxes, slants and angles. Only one, below, has a visible curve. but Inhabitat has better photos of some, with interiors.
Entry by University of Missouri-Rolla
My favorite took second place,Maryland’s Solar Decathlon Zero Energy Home, with an indoor waterfall — "a liquid desiccant wall system that's used to control humidity." The outdoor wall is pretty nice, too. (Rainwater from the roof is collected to water the plants.) Morning glories, of course, in my version.
Inhabitat is a stylish and interesting blog, worth bookmarking. Cutlery that's 70 percent potatoes? That's here....
Related: A Right Livelihood Award to Grameen Shakti which has installed more than 110,000 solar home systems in rural Bangladesh.
Three other awards were given, including one to Percy and Louise Schmeiser, a Canadian farming couple who are challenging Monsanto over genetically modified seed.
via Jeff Hess's Have Coffee Will Write.
Posted by Sheila Lennon 
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