What uses 90% less energy than its conventional cousins, serves as an emergency power hub for the neighborhood after a storm, and has custom fiber-composite flood proofing integrated into the wall, floor, and roof assemblies, plus an off-grid, direct DC solar hot water system? The SURE HOUSE, with initial concepts developed in collaboration with a Parsons class, students of the Stevens Institute of Technology under the supervision of Parsons alumnus Ed May,  designed and built the winning 2015 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon project. It’s a home designed to mitigate climate change and prepare inhabitants—and neighbors—for rising seas and increasingly severe storms. See a special presentation from the project’s student team leads on its resiliency features and what elements of the design may be scalable for larger buildings.

The SURE HOUSE team took first place overall in the October 2015 contest, after an unprecedented streak of winning first in seven individual contests, including Architecture, Market Appeal, Engineering, Communications, Commuting, Appliances and Home-Life.

The following students from the Parsons School of Constructed Environments were integral in the early planning stages and were key members of the summer construction group that preceded the fall competition installation: Israel Fuentes, Seonghak Lee, Mark Rakhmanov, Karina Andreeva, Jasmine Wright, and Andra Nicolescu.

Featured SURE HOUSE Speakers:

Ed May, Core faculty on the project and Parsons alumnus

AJ Elliott, Student Electrical Engineer

Chris Hamm, Student Energy Engineer and Construction Manager

Tom King, Student Fabrication Specialist

Elizabeth Lamb, Student on the Energy Modeling Team

Photocredit: The New School