Staff and students at Virginia Tech have designed a solar-powered, spacious yet efficient home that sets a positive tone for future building development.
Have you ever wondered: can we continue to live and work in the buildings that we do today without a second thought?
The current opinion is no; our building trends of the past couple centuries are heavily influenced by the assumption that land, power, and water are cheap and bountiful. Conventional appliances, construction materials, and building designs do not recognize the rising cost of oil, diminishing land, and rising population.
Not to be foreboding.
Instead of viewing these truths with despair, architects like those at Virginia Tech see these limitations as just new guidelines for the final product.
Explore their design here. The house won the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe award, a competition among 17 colleges from around the world that all convened in Madrid.
How does this apply to your business?
While we don’t all have the luxury of designing from scratch to create the perfect building, there are opportunities for space-saving and retrofitting in every business place.
Of particular note is how the kitchen table in Lumenhaus can be hidden beneath the counter when not in use, or rolled onto the outdoor patio to extend the function of the house without adding extra furniture.
Can you think of other ways to save space and cut down on unneeded accessories in your business or office?
