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The Silo House by Cornel University Student Posted: 11 Aug 2010 01:39 AM PDT This unique, sustainable, and modular house, called The Silo House was designed by Cornel University‘s team for 2009 Solar Decathlon. The design reminds us silo building of some industries. The house was designed as a modular house with unique assembly of circular and orthogonal elements. It is similar to the vernacular architecture upstate New York. This house consists of a central courtyard and three cylindrical living buildings  surrounded. As the center of the house, the central courtyard was designed as an independent building, with perimeter columns and photovoltaic canopy. All of the buildings are covered with a rectilinear array of photovoltaics. The cylinders’ design was inspired by industrial agricultural materials. The structure was made by CorTen corrugated steel as the cladding and exposed steel beams on the interior. The house takes advantage of solar gain from the steel envelope through an innovative skin-integrated solar thermal system that pre-heats hot water. Each cylinder has two operable Velux® skylights to maximize the natural lighting. The interior was designed by combining the agricultural and industrial aesthetic through a contemporary lens. The materials chosen were considered to be eco-friendly. The primary material pallete is made from forested black locust, ash and beech hardwoods from local area. They are complemented by the use of zero off-gassing finishes throughout the entirety of the house interior. Nanawall™ systems are used as the boundary between the courtyard, bedroom, and living room, blur the distinction between interior and exterior space. The kitchen was designed to provide energy efficient cooking activities, also to combine between cooking and entertaining activities. In the bedroom, the bed is raised into a a concealed ceiling box to create an open and usable space in its footprint. the kitchen the bedroom As described above, this house is completed by a lot of photovoltaics. About 40 200-watts photovoltaic panels are provided to produced DC electricity that will be inverted to AC. To support the  water heating system, this house is completed with solar thermal. The system includes the CorTen steel siding on the southwest side of the house that absorb the heat from the sun. 15 gallons of hot water can be supplied to the showers in 10 minutes. Some low maintenance plants are planted. The plants are divided into 3 different areas, the aquatic, the Riparian, and the Meadow zone that consists of grasses. There are also some rainwater collecting systems, provided by Aquacape, called RainExchange. This rainwater can be used to water the plants. The irrigation system is controlled by computer, considering the climate condition. The graywater are also collected and processed to provide sufficient water sources. the landscape concept All of these modern and sustainable features are controlled by computers. ref

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