A student design team at the University of Waterloo capped three years of hard work this week by finishing second overall in an international competition to design and build energy efficient buildings.
Warrior Home, which received contributions from more than 200 students to create a home for an Indigenous family on a reserve about two hours north of Waterloo Region, was one of nine teams in the virtual finale of the Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
A virtual group photograph of the Warrior Home student design team from the Solar Decathlon.
In addition to its second-place overall finish, the team took top spot in one of 10 categories, financial feasibility and affordability, and top-three honours in four others.
Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. secretary of energy, announced the winners and congratulated members of the Waterloo team - the vast majority of them engineering students – during a virtual awards ceremony.
“Our fight against the climate crisis is a lot like a decathlon, with all kinds of individual contests we need to get through - and we can’t win unless we do well in them all,” Granholm said.
'Tomorrow's architects and engineers'
“Today’s decathletes are tomorrow’s architects and engineers who are going to help us achieve President Biden’s ambitious and achievable clean energy goals and build our net-zero future. I can’t wait to see their big ideas come to life in neighborhoods across the country and around the world.”
Normally a two-year event, the contest was extended to three years by the COVID-19 pandemic.
And instead of displaying their highly efficient buildings on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., teams were featured in a virtual village.
Click here for the full story on the Warrior Home project.