Living in a vibrant and multicultural city, students of Florida International University are immersed in a melting pot of ethnicities. Our focus when building our solar house is to make the home energy and cost efficient, comfortable and affordable. At the same time, it reflects our cultural diversity and the beneficent climate that earned us the moniker, "The Sunshine State." To that end, we adopt a philosophy of in-betweeness, a threshold that creates a strong dialogue between the inside and outside. Frank Lloyd Wright described it this way, "We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other. Form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison."

Architecture

The Architecture Division conducted intensive R & D, a charette, and design competition to develop a broad array of ideas. They then refined the ideas to a concept design. Our design represents Miami, the city where we live, work, and play to the extent that the new Miami vernacular is non-contextual, almost arrogant. It's not Art Deco. It's not Mediterranean. It's nonconformist. Part of our design goal was to break away from the existing architectural styles. We wanted to show that the "alternative" lifestyle, i.e. living off the grid, doesn't have to be "alternative." Our house embraces today's energy-efficient technology, yet has all of the conveniences and comforts of the house next door.

Engineering

Engineering was faced with a four-fold design challenge. First, they needed to evaluate a typical house. Second, they had to redesign it to be as energy efficient as possible. Third, the house had to be stable enough to be picked up and transferred to the competition site. Fourth, they had to design the house so that it could be assembled and disassembled quickly at least twice.