Making a real difference has been the goal of the Empowerhouse team all along. “When we first entered into the Solar Decathlon competition, it did not make much sense to us to expend all the effort in designing and building a model house if it would not have a real impact,” said Orlando Velez, who went from working on the project as a student at The New School to being hired as the Operations Director full-time after graduation.

“All of us worked hard to make a house that’s amazingly energy efficient. It’s a really robust opportunity to teach the community about a whole host of environmental issues — green gardening, stormwater management, getting tax credits for using solar power, and more. It’s one of a kind. How could we just pack it up after the competition?”

Instead, working with project partner Habitat for Humanity, the house was moved from the National Mall to the Deanwood neighborhood east of the Anacostia River. Habitat and their volunteer builders fully realized the house designed by the students–adding a second story, and a second unit to make this a two-family home. They’ve hung drywall, put in innovative, sustainable landscaping, and conducted extensive sustainability testing on the heating, cooling, and other systems to ensure its maximum energy efficiency. In fact, construction has been such a success, and the house is so cost effective both to build and to live in (not drawing any power from the grid also means no power bills for the eventual resident), that Habitat for Humanity is exploring using these methods to build other projects around the country, and Habitat D.C. is planning to build six more in the D.C. area.

This year has also seen the house win a few more prizes and take part in more sustainability showcases. This summer, it earned a 2012 Mayor’s Sustainability Award from Mayor Vincent C. Gray. The team has also taken part in a pair of national sustainability events. In June, it was featured in World Environment Day, sponsored by Washington, D.C.’s District Department of the Environment (DDOE). As part of the event, they gave house tours and led workshops on low-impact and water-saving features, passive house construction strategies, and photovoltaic cells for more than 200 visitors. Later that same month, the team took part in another event, the D.C. Solar Flare. Dozens of people were lead through the project by members of the Empowerhouse team.

“We’re so happy with how this project has evolved,” says Velez. “More than anything, we’re honored that our project will become someone’s real home, and that it will continue to benefit them for as long as they live there by reducing their energy costs. Wherever it goes from here, we’ll always know we have helped these families. And that means a lot.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for December 4th, 2012.

empowerhouse with washington monument in background. photo: nicole de feo

DOE affordability juried contests have been announced, and Empowerhouse has swept the competition with a final cost estimate of $229,890.26. We are sharing first place with Purdue, although their estimate came in roughly $20,000 more than ours. This brings our overall standing up from 8th to 4th place!

Stay tuned for the next juried contest results; Architecture will be announced Wednesday afternoon.

As we trekked across the grass and gray walkways of West Potomac Park, we finally reached the rows of futuristic houses that make up the Solar Decathlon competition. Lines of people ribboned around the houses waiting to see what sustainable curiosities were built into each structure.

We walked up the ramp of house 204 and an EmpowerHouse student waited at the front door to invite us in. Upon entering the house, we quickly forgot we were in a competition as we drifted through the light, airy spaces to the living room. At the back of the house a big square window looked out on to the back porch, where you could imagine the future partner family gazing through and watching the seasons change.

All the solar-powered houses in the competition had a unique aspect, but the EmpowerHouse’s casual, comfortable design felt not only like a sustainably engineered building, but a home that a family could share life’s moments.

One of the reasons this house is so livable is that the homeowner has the option of being connected to the community with the front porch, but can also opt for privacy with the back porch. The combined kitchen and living room space is also privately located at the rear of the structure.

Although there are no windows on the shared wall, there is plenty of natural light from the large rear windows. The house has a extra thick building envelope and has been constructed to be airtight, but the upper staircase windows allow light to cascade from above into the communal living areas and combine with the higher than average ceiling to create openness.

The EmpowerHouse has impressive sustainable aspects, but the livability of the house further enables the structure to be more than a house, it’s a sustainable home.

As a new student joining the Empowerhouse project, I am excited by the opportunity to help this house truly live up to its name: ‘Empower’. We are working to empower not only the soon-to-be residents of the house as self-reliant homeowners, but also to empower their neighbors to receive the economic and environmental benefits of solar power as well.

Today I had the chance to sit down with Anya, Rob, and Cheryl of the Mt Pleasant Solar Cooperative to discuss how we could support the formation of a solar co-op in Ward 7. The concept of a solar cooperative is simple: neighbors joining together to collectively figure out the most affordable and effective way to go solar. In a solar co-op, neighbors support each other in navigating the financial incentives and choosing the best installers. The Mt Pleasant Solar Cooperative now has over 350 solar-powered members, and has ignited a network of solar cooperatives across the city under the coalition DC Sun.

Sitting in Anya’s sunny kitchen with a view of several of her neighbors solar-paneled roofs, we discussed how we could spread this model to Ward 7. It seems that their success lies not in that they have a singular model, but that they have made themselves experts of the practicalities of solar installations and are dedicated to walking interested parties through the process.

There are a number of innovative possibilities for making solar financially accessible. Several homes in Deanwood have already taken advantage of one such possibility by leasing solar panels on their rooftops through Solar City. These residents had panels installed on their roofs for no down payment, and pay Solar City on a monthly basis for their electricity from the panels at a lower rate than is charged by utilities. Further, a couple multifamily buildings in the neighborhood have leased solar hot water heaters in a similar model through Skyline Innovations. Anya, Robert, and Cheryl are also excited about working with some of the sponsors of energy assistance programs to pay for solar installations on their client’s homes, which would provide them with energy security, rather with a subsidy to pay for dirty energy for countless years into the future.

I am committed to making Empowerhouse a catalyst for residents of Ward 7 to claim these opportunities to have healthy and secure home energy systems. The Solar Decathlon competition is only the beginning of the house’s ability to inspire, encourage, and — yes — empower.

With an early start Saturday morning our class meets up at the megabus.com NYC bus stop for our day long trip to DC, to view our competition as well as further progress our understanding of our magnificent Empowerhouse home designed and built by our fellow students. At 11:30 we arrived in DC followed by exploring the DC underground metro (picture included metro platform). Upon arriving to the Solar Decathlon site at the DC mall our group first toured our home, which attracted a large line of Decathlon participants, and included a handful of well spoken students explaining the features of the house, inside and out. We listened to explanations about the highly insulated walls, efficient HVAC system with heat recovery, the triple pane windows from Intus Windows, a Lithuanian window maufacturer, a description of the family moving into the house after it will be placed in Deanwood (a suburban area of DC), then an overview of the elements and appliances used in the house. When exiting the house Max Kaufman (picture inserted of Max outside) handed us a well crafted Empowerhouse post-card that had embedded within seeds to grow basil, parsley and chive. The post seeds in the post card were examples of plants that we had growing in the community garden in Deanwood. On the front of the card was a map showing the route that the house would take from the National Mall to it’s final resting spot in the community of Deanwood.

Our team wasn’t able to visit Deanwood as the day dragged by, we were able to find a decent Italian restaurant to feed ourselves (our first real meal of the day) in the area Eastern Market. During this late lunch/early dinner we discussed the project and Heather Zanoni and how her time in DC was going as the competition was finishing up.

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Lee Beckman
Max Kaufman
Alana Gerson

We eventually arrived at the Solar Village at 8:30 on Saturday morning in time for the morning meetings. After words, we spent time going through the Solar Village. Besides New Schools own Empowerhouse, the homes were presented by Appalachian State, Maryland, Middlebury and New Zealand seemed to stand out the most. All of these houses had designs that impressed me. I felt that the use of Tree bark and other natural surfaces gave the Appalachian State house a great feel that represented where the house was designed and built. The architectural lay out of the New Zealand house was very sweeping and please to see. The houses designed by Middlebury and Maryland impressed me the most. The use of architectural design, space, engineering and most importantly, natural resources (such as water in the Maryland Watershed house) were ingenious. When touring each house guides were entertaining and informative.

There were generally about four guides in each house who would answer questions and elaborate on various aspects of the design and construction. Lines were typically long and thirty minutes was a typical wait time to get through one house. Our only regret was that we didn’t get to see more houses.

Visiting Deanwood we found a community preparing for the houses to arrive. It was clear they were excited as they were willing to answer the questions of all visitors to the site. We saw the site for the house, and visited the community garden. It was clear that this house would not only be of benefit for the eventual owners but for the entire community.

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Max Kaufmann
Milano School for International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School

We (Kara and Anna) are picking up where others have left off in coordinating volunteers to complete the installation of the Empowerhouse, and it’s sister home in Deanwood. As this was our first trip to D.C. as ‘volunteer coordinators’ we hoped to meet with key members of Habitat for Humanity in Washington, D.C., with whom we will be working to supply enough volunteers to complete these homes. We were lucky that two key people were presenting a workshop at the Village while we were there. We learned some general information about Habitat for Humanity from the presentation. Then afterwards, we were introduced. We had the opportunity to ask a few questions, and most importantly, we get to start our working relationship with faces put to names – not just as email addresses.

After a full day, and our first day-trip to Washington D.C., our class once again sat together, silent in our exhaustion and anticipation for the beginning of our leg of the Empowerhouse journey.

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Anna Feltham & Kara Matthews
Students at Milano School for International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School
Habitat for Humanity Volunteer Coordinators

PHOTO CREDIT: LISA SMITH, 2011

Many amazing students, faculty and staff from three schools have come together for this project. Some individuals have been involved in the design/build as others took on challenges in urban policy and community connection. Some have been involved for over two years, as others have been involved for one semester or even two weeks. The scales of contribution vary across many disciplines and capacities. Each contribution has been critical to the success of Empowerhouse.

We are on The Mall for seven more days at the competition at West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C. Let us celebrate what we have achieved together as a team.

Thank you, each and every one of you. : )

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PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN

Aakriti Kumar
Amanda Waal
Andrew McGregor
Anna Sarly
Brandon LeNoir
Brendan Mahoney
Carly Berger
Chelsea Crisafulli
Christine Paxson
Chris Piuggi
Devang Shah
Emily Kerns
Eric Feuster
Evan MacPherson
Felicia Nitu
Haixiao Jiang
Hannah Olpp
Heeryung Oh
Hiroshi Teramae
Jason Hudspeth
Jennifer Morris
Jessica Barnhouse
Joyce Troy
Kenneth Amoha
Kimberly Tate
Lan Chu
Livio Guerrero
Liz Rutledge
Maya Sariahmed
Melanie L. Hendel
Nicole De Feo
Obinna Elechi
Priscilla Lee
Robert Miller
Shannon Vermeulen
Sharon Ho
Siena Shaw
Stephanie Ip
Stephanie Madrid
Steve Scribner
Sun Kyong (Gene) Park
Sydney Saubestre
Vanessa Estrada
Vasilis Kyriacou
Whitney Hopkins
Willy Chan

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MILANO SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, MANAGEMENT AND URBAN POLICY

Amarilis Salcedo
Amber Patterson
Amita Hotkar
Bryan Sanchinell
Christine Tornabene
Crisalia Gonzalez
Dale Hisiger
Dean Morris
Devin Samih Monajem
Elijah Lessey
Elliott Buscemi
Esther Cherubin
Eugenie Zynda
Franchesca Cifuentes
Gal Gabrial
Hafsa Ibraham
Heather Zanoni
Ian Shorts
Jennifer Terry
Jill Smith
Justin Hall
Kaitlin Wauchope
Katherine Clements
Kendall Sacks
Lina Fedirko
Lisa Ahn
Mala Kumar
Marie Hoguet
Mark Atwood
Michael Triolo
Neil Boos
Philip Neumann
Rachel Berman
Rachel Profeta
Richard Beadle
Rita Luppino
Ruth Sabai
Sandy Ordonez
Shana Mosher
Shetal Shah
Suzanne Sousa
Tasmai Jayant
Tedeusz Kroll
TG Sarangan
Thomas Johnson
Val Zekas

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STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (this is an incomplete list — gathering names currently! as of Sun, Sept 25)

Dan Tipaldo
Erich Rau
Francis Garcia
Hilary Schrauth
Joshua Laryea
Justin Richman
Melvin Williams III
Nathanial Cox
Nick Mundell
Steven Chick
Travis Heithoff

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FACULTY and ADMINISTRATION

Alison Mears
Anthony Pereira
Benjamin Bacon
Blaise Rastello
Cameron Tonkinwise
Carrie Neal
Charles Allison
Chris Steff ens
David Lewis
David White
Deborah Kirschner
Ed May
Edward Powers
Eric Wen
Frank Fisher
Federico Negro
Fiona Dieff enbacher
Francisco Tezen
Hamid Hadim
Jane Pirone
Jason Lim
Jean Gardner
Jen Rhee
Joerg Thoene
John Clinton
John Nastasi
John Stinar
Joseph Yarborough
Julie Godsoe
Karina Andreeva
Laura Briggs
Leslie Brunell
Lisa Maione
Lloyd Hicks
Lyn Godley
Matthew Tanteri
Nadia Elrokhsy
Nadine Bourgeois
Nevin Cohen
Orlando Velez
Patricia Beirne
Pawin Stanley
Peter Russell
Scott Gassman
Shoshanah Goldberg
Timo Rissanen
Will Murray

PHOTO CREDIT: LISA SMITH, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011

PHOTO CREDIT: VASILIS KYRIACOU, 2011