Tue., March 29
Solar Decathalon

Since 2002, The US Department of Energy has put on an international competition it calls the Solar Decathlon. It pits the best designers and the brightest engineers from teams across the globe against each other. Their goal is to design a livable, off-the-grid house that uses only the sun's power to run everything from lamps and dishwashers, to washing machines, computers, and hair straighteners ... all of these using only light and heat from the sun.

Students from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and UMass-Lowell have painstakingly crafted a New England-style home on behalf of the Bay State. Designers and engineers from Team Massachusetts have built a 1,000-square-foot green home, and designed everything from the solar panels on top, on down to the silverware and chairs to use at dinner. Their hope, and the hope of the Solar Decathlon, is to push home design into the twenty-first century using bleeding edge technology, and figure out where, and how, we'll be living in the years ahead. Check out some photos of past designs here.