A chronological record of Team DURA, from early development through the competition and what came after.
The team's early development and public milestones on the way to competition.
Team DURA successfully transformed the project and submitted 80% of Design Development documents to the Department of Energy — a milestone that came after overcoming early challenges in coordinating a team of students from different disciplines, skills, and schedules. The college's administration granted the team space in the Voorhees building to work together.
Team DURA appeared on a panel at the Center for Architecture's program marking the second anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, "Getting Regional Power to the People: Solutions, Strategies, and Case Studies." Professor Alexander Aptekar represented DURA alongside panelists from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the CUNY Building Performance Lab, and Con Edison.
A group of DURA Decathletes volunteered at Red Hook's Added Value Community Farm, working with David Buckel under the Community Composting Initiative. Added Value had grown from an initiative addressing food access and youth employment into a full city-block farm with its own composting sites and solar panels.
Team DURA brought Earth Day to New York City College of Technology with informational stations on recycled concrete, tire gardens, DURA prototype planters, and the project's floorplan. The event was a cross-club collaboration with NYCCT's American Concrete Institute club, sponsored by the Student Government Association.
What happened after the 2015 competition — continued analysis, recognition, and outreach.
A technical analysis of the vertical solar energy wall system developed and prototyped for Team DURA examined how successfully the façade utilized thermal and solar-electric energy, drawing on Department of Energy monitoring data and project modeling to compare achieved energy-harvesting levels against the required exposure areas, and explored implications for future designs.
Solar Decathletes joined project sponsors — including Jim Dever of Santander Bank, Jordan Podwal of RAB Lighting, and Shawn Torbert — at an Ecofest awards ceremony.
Sponsors and faculty joined panel discussions related to the project.
Team DURA presented the project at Building Energy NYC.
The 2017 Atlanta Green Schools Conference addressed the school system's social equity issues through workshops on sustainability. City Tech ran a "Solar Power Wall Models Workshop," led by Professor Aptekar with students Alice Chan, Langston Clark, and Wesley Oler, in which participants built cardboard solar facades and used lamps to simulate sunlight while learning to find the optimal angular position for panel placement.
The project was featured in NYCCT Techne, Issue 04, Spring 2017, an academic publication of New York City College of Technology.
After the competition, following some friction between the team and New York City College of Technology, the DURA house was rebuilt in Berthoud, Colorado, in 2018, as a Habitat for Humanity project.
Rather than remaining a display prototype, the house was given a second life as an actual home — a fitting outcome for a project that, from the start, was designed to be lived in.
Photos from the Berthoud, CO reassembly, 2018.
DURA Solar Decathlon 2015 Archive