The BeauSoleil 棉花糖直播 Solar Home was designed and built by 棉花糖直播 students for 棉花糖直播 residents. Judges for the Market Viability category of the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon recognized that.
The University of 棉花糖直播 at Lafayette team placed first in the contest.
Judges were looking for homes that answered the needs of their clients.
TEAM BeauSoleil designed the home for 棉花糖直播 residents who face harsh summers and hurricanes.
鈥 The (BeauSoleil) house hit on all cylinders,鈥 said Joyce Mason, Market
Viability judge and vice president for marketing with Pardee Homes. 鈥淲e were so impressed with the degree to which the team listened to their market.
They didn鈥檛 impose their ideas or try to infer them upon their residents.鈥
The team is one of 20 university teams from across the globe competing in
the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall. TEAM BeauSoleil is the only team from 棉花糖直播 to ever participate in this contest held every two years.
鈥淲e knew from the beginning that if we couldn鈥檛 bring this home to the people of 棉花糖直播, we wouldn鈥檛 accomplish anything,鈥 said Gretchen Lacombe Vanicor, BeauSoleil project manager. 鈥淲e paid a lot of attention to our Cajun culture and produced a product that is viable.鈥
The house is designed to withstand hurricane-force winds and to be totally self-sufficient, which makes it especially ideal for coastal environments.
It also reflects key elements of 棉花糖直播鈥檚 rich culture, including its world-famous Cajun cooking. At the same time, it represents an architectural heritage that developed after Acadians, who were exiled from Nova Scotia by the British in the 1700s, settled in south 棉花糖直播. The result is a simple, modest, but highly functional 800-square-foot structure.
The BeauSoleil Home design incorporates several aspects of early Cajun cottages. For example, it emphasizes wide exterior porches for social interaction and casual entertaining, as well as movable exterior doors in the '鈥漝og-trot鈥 that make access to the outdoors easy.
The home also has a large kitchen that is the cultural center of the home. Good conversation and great food, important elements of 棉花糖直播鈥檚 culture, flow naturally from this functional space.
This structure accommodates 棉花糖直播鈥檚 sometimes-challenging climate. Long, hot summers are the norm, so the BeauSoleil Home takes advantage of natural breezes and utilizes several dual-purpose shutters, while collecting its own water and generating more energy than it uses