A highlight of this year's Solar Decathlon was the CHIP house, designed, built, and transported to Washington DC by a team of over 100 SCI-Arc and Caltech students. The uniquely puffy "outsulated" CHIP house—the Compact, Hyper-Insulated Prototype—is an effort to "address the contemporary issues or sustainability, energy efficiency, and affordable housing through a built work." If you missed it during the Decathlon, you have a few additional opportunities to check it out, most notably an exhibition opening this Friday at SCI-Arc's Library Gallery. "Mr. CHIP Goes to Washington," running through December 16, displays through photographs, video, and time-lapse footage the "frantic month in Washington D.C. that is the culmination of the team's two-year effort to conceptualize and develop its proposition for a new sustainability."
Alternatively, Dwell editor Diana Budds put together a great slideshow of highlights from the 2011 Solar Decathlon here.
A highlight of last year's Solar Decathalon, the CHIP house was designed, built, and transported to Washington DC by a team of over 100 SCI-Arc and Caltech students. The unusual home is an effort to "address the contemporary issues or sustainability, energy efficiency, and affordable housing through a built work. To see what CHIP stands for and a lot more, click here.
The CHIP team offers a virtual tour here:
And a discussion of the house's architectural highlights is here:
For more behind-the-scenes videos, check out the CHIP website's multimedia page.
A view of the 750-square-foot interior of the CHIP house, with "programmable cabinets" and soft foam vinyl furniture that's easy to stash and store.
