Team Web site: www.solardecathlon.upm.es
Make a squat pyramid of glass, invert it base up, and install both photovoltaic (PV) panels and solar water heating collectors in the upward-facing base. Next, set the tip of the pyramid on a ball-and-socket mechanism pivoted by a solar tracking system like a very slowly spinning or tilting toy top. Put this on top of a house, and you have the essence of the unique Team Spain U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009 entry.
Graduating architecture student Irene Garrido says the Solar Decathlon experience is a "dream come true"—a sentiment her teammates were quick to echo—and that energy efficiency is not just a trend but something she believes in. Although the Team Spain is dominated by architecture students, it does include engineers and others, as evidenced by the technically challenging solar-tracking roof it developed.
The team characterizes its house style as "very, very modern." Team members call it the "Black and White House, but with an orange touch of color" because it meets the yin and yang of high efficiency and comfortable living. There is a separate kitchen-bath-utilities module and a sun room for passive solar heating, but otherwise, all the living and sleeping area is provided by a single large, multifunctional space. A combination of daylighting, partially reflected through skylights in the house's pyramid top, and LED (light-emitting diode) lights, programmed to simulate dawn or dusk or be turned on by an alarm clock, give this house a special feel.
The Madrid Solar Decathlon 2005 entry was a Mediterranean-style house, and in 2007, it was a rectangular house, so the 2009 team felt it had to "do something completely different."
The solar-tracking inverted pyramid top is the most notable technology of the house, but other systems include: