ARTD 299 SPECIAL PROJECTS
SOLAR DECATHLON I

The University of Illinois was selected as one of 20 colleges and universities to participate in the 2007 Solar Decathlon. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Solar Decathlon challenges student and faculty teams to design and construct a functional, aesthetically pleasing and comfortable house powered only by the sun. In the fall of 2007, after planning and building for fifteen months, teams came together in Washington, D.C., and created a solar village. The village was an opportunity for UI students to demonstrate that their solar home was the most powerful, comfortable and stylish.  Visit the Web site at www.solardecathlon.uiuc.edu for more information.

This course was created to field a design team from Art and Design to work on the Solar Decathlon Project with students and faculty from the colleges of Engineering, Fine and Applied Arts, Communications, Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences an Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Objectives during fall semester 2006 were to collectively brainstorm and agree on a unifying idea and then break into sub-groups to work on design aspects of the entire project.