Solar Decathlon 2011: Experimental houses open for judging

Sept. 29, 2011 12:01 PM PT

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The 2011 Solar Decathlon won’t announce its overall winners until Saturday, but the University of Maryland entry pictured above placed first Wednesday in the architectural design category. On Tuesday, a team from Purdue and a combined team from Parsons the New School for Design in New York and Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey tied for first in the affordability category. Their energy-efficient home designs were estimated to cost less than $250,000 to build.

Photos: Solar Decathlon 2011, the houses inside and out

The engineering judging will be announced Thursday. As about 20 teams rack up points in the U.S. Department of Energy’s biannual competition in Washington, D.C., Maryland has moved into the overall lead, followed by Ohio State, Purdue and Middlebury, pictured below.

Updated at 12:40 p.m.: In the Thursday judging of the engineering category, a New Zealand team from the Victoria University of Wellington placed first. The entry from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and Caltech in Pasadena took second.

In the overall standings, Maryland remained in first, Ohio State in second, Purdue in third. The SCI-Arc and Caltech team surged into fourth. More judging to come; look for final results over the weekend.

ALSO:

Photos: Caltech and SCI-Arc’s CHIP house

Article: Caltech and SCI-Arc at Solar Decathlon

The bizarrely complicated world of recycling

-- Craig Nakano

/ U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon

L.A. at Home

Craig Nakano

Craig Nakano is the assistant managing editor for Entertainment and Arts. He joined The Times as an assistant travel editor, later served as home editor and most recently was the fine arts editor, leading a team whose accolades included a Pulitzer Prize and an Online Journalism Award. A California native, he worked at the Desert Sun of Palm Springs and at the San Francisco Chronicle after graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He lives in Long Beach with his husband and son.