Trojan Goat Solar House
Charlottesville, VA / Washington, D.C.
This house is a mobile, off-grid and fully self-sustaining prototype designed for the first ever Solar Decathlon inter-collegiate competition, hosted by the United States Department of Energy. Nicknamed the Trojan Goat, the house’s closed wood exterior unfolds like a Trojan horse when it arrives at its destination, and its power systems can generate energy from any source, much like a goat. The home was designed and built by students at the University of Virginia, then transported to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for a multi-week competition. Its design offers an inspired space for living enhanced by original strategies for energy savings and occupant comfort. Using passive strategies that harness natural energy (such as sunlight and wind) as well as active strategies (such as materiality and energy monitoring), the team’s efforts led to several inventions, such as the Solar Luminaire, an interior lighting system that collects and distributes sunlight to the interior using fiber-optics. There is also a transportable planting and hydrology system that collects rainwater from the greenroof, stores it in retention tanks, and distributes it to a series of reconfigurable planters. The house also provides experimental opportunities to evaluate its materials and utilities over time. The structural edge beams, for example, are each primed with different sealants, and will be monitored annually to determine the most environmental and durable solution. Today, the house is used for ongoing academic research, monitoring, and analysis, as well as serving as a guest faculty residence at the University of Virginia.
Like a Trojan horse, the house’s wood skin unfolds when it arrives. Like a goat, it can generate energy from any source.
This project was completed while Josh Dannenberg was a student at the University of Virginia.