Refract House, the entry for Team California (Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts), is
shown at night illuminated by LEDs.
solar decathlon workshop. According to
Muecke, “From participating in the workshop, she knew the specs we needed to
work with, the size and type of lights.”
He added that, as a result, “She took a
lead role in the lighting design.”
The amount of background work
that goes into lighting design for any
Decathlon entry is far more than meets
the eye. For example, John George, a
third-year master of architecture student
at Iowa State, took a summer course
designed to study energy consumption
of the Decathlon project. The course
included overall energy performance,
thermal loads, diurnal shifts and mechanical system responses. During the course,
participants realized that their lighting
strategy greatly affected energy performance. “If our daylighting approach didn’t
work as planned, we would have to turn
more lights on, thus changing our projected energy consumption.” Lighting
analysis is required in the rules of the
Solar Decathlon, so John created an independent study course to look at the
quantitative analysis of both the daylighting electric lighting design and the
strategies. Using software from AGi32
of Littleton, Colo., he modeled the sunlight for different times of day and sky
conditions, which provided information
on how much artificial lighting would be
needed, and when.
When asked what he had gained from
the project that could be used in a future
career, George was quick to point out that
his role was “minimal compared to many
others who have worked longer and more
intensely.” He added that his role as
“checker” is one that’s rarely addressed in
academic settings, but it’s important in
any project, and he hopes it will translate
to applicable experience in the working
world.
