USC places 10th in Solar Decathlon competition

The USC fluxHome returned home to USC on Monday after it placed 10th overall in the biennial Solar Decathlon competition at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, Calif.

Teamwork · The USC team provided tours for people who were interested in technical aspects or who admired the layout of the house. – William Ehart | Daily Trojan

The fluxHome placed first in appliances and third in architecture out of the 19 competing teams. The team also tied for first with all the competitors in the energy balance contest.

The decathlon included teams from around the country, as well as ones from the Czech Technical University in the Czech Republic and the Vienna University of Technology in Austria.

“People at the competition really enjoyed our house. They thought it was really innovative how we had a really big open area inside,” said Alec Chiu, a fifth-year architecture student who worked on the fluxHome.

The fluxHome hosted a dinner for other competitors in the “flux space,” an area located in the middle of the house in front of the kitchen, with a table that could extend from 17 inches to 10 feet. The space was designed to efficiently accommodate many different activities. The entertainment room adjacent to the kitchen was also designed to be adjustable. It featured five chairs and sofas that could be rearranged into 24 different layouts.

“Our house was just different in the sense that all the other schools had big back porches while ours focused on the interior of the house,” Chiu said.

The team tried to create a similar effect to that of a big porch with a skylight above the flux space. Chiu said that many people were impressed with the spacious bathroom, which featured two sinks and a large bathtub and shower.

People also asked a lot of questions about the fluxHome’s “green wall,” a vegetable garden on a wall next to the kitchen. This feature can be seen on several sides of the house, where one wall has mainly edible plants and herbs and another wall toward the front of the house showcases plants native to California.

This was USC’s first year competing in the Solar Decathlon, and team members were generally pleased with their work. Chiu said that many times the fluxHome only differed from other homes in competitions by a few points, and some of those points were simply because of human error. For example, during the hot water test the team was not able to make the water quite hot enough because someone simply forgot to turn on the correct switch.

Project Manager Justin Kang, an alumnus of the School of Architecture, said the home will sit in the south lot at USC until further decisions are made about its future. Currently, the house is split into three pieces, but looking in can provide an accurate sense of what it looked like while at the competition.

During and prior to the competition, many people came out to see the innovative house. Teams at the Solar Decathlon gave tours to those who visited their house, and Chiu said many high school students also visited the fluxHome as part of a homework assignment. The School of Architecture even visited the fluxHome as a field trip, and students wrote essays on the project.

Chiu said they learned that communication was really important when giving tours because some people were interested in technical aspects of the house whereas others simply admired the layout and features of the house. Brian Lee, a junior majoring in business administration, was fascinated by the sustainability of the house, for example.

“Anything toward a green movement I think is a really cool movement just because with all the things that are going on in the world we are just trying to find a way to be environmentally sustainable,” Lee said.

Rachel Martinelli, a first-year graduate student in architecture, used to attend school in Indiana. She said visiting the competition site helped her realize the advantages Southern California has in terms of sustainability.

“Just the mindset of using solar panels is very different because [when] you’re in the Midwest and there’s rain so using solar panels isn’t as common as in California,” Martinelli said. “It’s a very different advantage into sustainable design coming from that sort of environment.”

Chiu said that the team originally planned to donate the fluxHome to a family after their competition, but no final preparations have been made. The fluxHome will continue to sit on the south end of campus until its outcome is decided, something some students hope will come quickly.

“I think the fluxHome is probably a really good idea, but I really don’t like how the debris is still lingering in the sculpture garden,” said Ethan Lillie, a junior majoring in chemical engineering.