Solar Decathlon

Following years of research and development, an accidental fire and rebuild, and around a month in the Dubai desert, Virginia Tech students have won the 2018 Solar Decathlon Middle East with the FutureHaus. The prefabricated modular home runs from solar power and was assembled in under two days.

The 2017 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon has come to a close in Denver. This year's winning house blends green design with a plan to encourage the surrounding community to get together and discuss ways to use less energy.

SURE HOUSE is designed to reduce global climate change while protecting its inhabitants from the damaging consequences of existing climate change, such as extreme coastal weather.

Lots of houses nowadays are designed to minimize the amount of energy they use and to generate their own electricity. Fewer, though, are designed to withstand extreme coastal weather conditions as well. The high-tech and feature-loaded Sure House does all of this.

US Solar Decathlon 2015 competitors the University of Texas at Austin and Munich's Technische Universität München have teamed-up to produce NexusHaus, a concept sustainable home that runs solely on solar power, and focuses on water efficiency.

The results are finally in for this year's European Solar Decathlon competition. Gizmag was in Paris over the weekend to take a closer look at the prototype sustainable houses.

The 2014 European Solar Decathlon kicked off in Paris last week, with a total of 20 sustainable houses and 800 competitors hailing from 16 countries arriving in the City of Light's Château de Versailles estate.

Many homes in Taiwan feature illegal makeshift shelters on their rooftops to provide extra living space. A team of architects has developed a concept house which would give these shelters a greenhouse-inspired makeover and shift reliance to renewable sources of energy.

Live-Lib, a concept for a two-part residential building, is designed to provide a degree of privacy while feeding off communal resources to drive down costs and energy usage, potentially forming part of a sustainable future for Paris.

A team of Delft University students has developed a concept for a solar-powered skin to be fitted to the typical Dutch home, better aligning its energy usage with 21st century power demands.

The Empowerhouse won first prize in the Affordability category of the 2011 US Solar Decathlon and was redesigned to become the first house in the city of Washington, DC built to Passive House standards. Its first family speak of a brighter future in their ultra-energy-efficient home.

Team Austria (Vienna University of Technology) has been announced the overall winner of Solar Decathlon 2013 after the closest competition in the history of the event. Second place went to University of Nevada Las Vegas, with the Czech Technical University achieving third place overall.