SCI-Arc/Caltech Virtual Tour - Solar Decathlon 2011

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It is something else to finally be here. It has taken two-and-a-half years and 120 students
to get here, so it’s been extraordinary. Our building is called “CHIP” – it stands
for “compact hyper-insulated prototype.” So the insulation in that name says it all
– that’s a huge component of the building.
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So, this house is going in Los Angeles which is a really dense urban environment so one
of the things we’ve done is we’ve removed the walls in the house and a made a large
continuous space instead and we’ve divided up the levels of the house by putting things
higher than others.
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So the wall behind us is entirely programmable and the furniture is designed entirely by
students and it literally pops out, it’s foam, it’s very light to handle and move
around the house, to be able to use the house for different things, the shelves pop off
and you can put them wherever you want to customize it. One of the most interesting
things is we have a lot of really fun ways to interact with the house. We built an iPad
application where you can just click on the devices you want to turn on and off.
So, insulation is not typically a very sexy part of architecture so usually you will hide
it in a wall and let it go. What we decided to do is accentuate it -- accentuate our high
insulation value. So the first thing we do is wrap the entire building in these blankets
of insulation, they’re made of denim, recycled blue jeans, essentially, and then we have
to have the skin fit the building, and fit CHIP itself. So, we have done that, we’ve
pre-manufactured it to the shape of CHIP, we set it on top of the building and we drape
it down, and then tuck it into the windows and doors, and tuft it in place, and cable
as you can see on the outside.
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