ABSTRACT

From October 3-22, 2007, the third Solar Decathlon competition was held on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Solar Decathlon is an international competition in which university teams from around the world design and construct a onebedroom, zero-energy house that is built off-site, transported to the National Mall and reconstructed on-site in one week. The houses are judged in ten different contests over a twoweek period in early October. In 2007, as in previous years, millions of dollars and thousands of hours went into the design and construction of the 20 houses, and each team developed a unique response to the exact same architectural and engineering challenges.