Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 30, 2005|Volume 34, Number 5

School of Architecture dean Robert Stern (on deck, left) chats with visitors to the home on Orchard Street that was designed and built by School of Architecture students as their First-Year Building Project.

House designed and built by architecture students is first to use new solar technology

As part of their effort to provide affordable housing, students at the School of Architecture have constructed the first home in New Haven to use solar photovoltaic panels to produce electricity.

The new home at 590 Orchard St. was formally dedicated on Sept. 22.

Each year, the new architecture students at Yale build a house for a family of low or moderate income. Called the First-Year Building Project, the program offers beginning architecture students a unique experience in design and construction, as well as the opportunity to deal with such challenges as budget constraints, client needs, neighborhood context and environmental sustainability. The required program -- often cited by students as their reason for attending Yale's architecture school -- is now in its 39th year, and has included the construction of 16 homes in New Haven.

The project begins with a competition. Teams of students devise models for an affordable single-family home of 1,500 square feet that will rise on a specific site in New Haven. The client for the project is Neighboring Housing Services, which makes the completed house available at low cost to first-time homeowners. A jury composed of Yale faculty and representatives of the housing service choose the winning design, and students construct the house themselves.

The housing service funds only part of the total cost of the house, and students seek donations from manufacturers and commercial suppliers for most of the building materials. In addition to getting a hands-on education in building, these architects-in-training have a chance to use many of the newest and most innovative products on the market.

This year the five teams of 10 students had a new challenge: to incorporate a cutting-edge, solar-powered energy system into their designs.

Committed to using environment-friendly materials, fuel-conserving technology and renewable sources of energy whenever possible, the students secured support from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund to pay for a state-of-the-art sustainable energy system. The system consists of roof-mounted photovoltaic panels providing 50% of the electricity needed by an average family, reports Paul Brouard, who has directed the First-Year Building Project for 33 years.

The cathedral ceiling in the two-story home allowed for a high placement of windows, affording the homeowners more privacy.

The winning design incorporates the 16 solar panels in a way that makes them invisible from the street and from almost any angle on the ground, a feature that impressed the judges. The design "accommodates the solar panels, but doesn't announce them," says Gabrielle Brainard, a student who worked on the project. Henry Dynia, the longtime housing service representative to the First-Year Building Project, says the structure is the first house in New Haven to use the solar technology, as well as the first student-built home to do so.

In addition to providing half the energy the new homeowners will need, the photovoltaic system has a wider benefit. Rather than using batteries to store solar energy that is not being used, the photovoltaic system reroutes the unused energy to an electric grid shared by neighbors. The electric company that serves the house credits the homeowners for the electricity their solar panels generate.

The student designers see the cost benefit of the photovoltaic system as an incentive for other affordable housing ventures. Brainard says the families who qualify to buy First-Year Building Project houses would benefit from a technology that would "normally be out of their reach."

"The most exciting thing about this house is something that you don't see, but you will feel in your pocket book, and that will make the planet smile," Dynia says.

"Solar photovoltaics is a viable technology for use today in Connecticut residences," notes Lise Dondy, chief operating officer of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. "We were pleased to support Yale School of Architecture's project as a way of introducing future architects to the benefits of incorporating solar energy into the design of residences."

The site chosen for this year's project is a residential neighborhood between Whalley and Dixwell avenues. Students had to balance their contemporary architectural vision with the traditional character of the neighborhood. The result is a clapboard-sided, two-story house that -- while incorporating many modern architectural elements -- manages to blend in with the single-family homes on the block that date from the beginning of the 20th century.

"The roof has a unique structure," says Brouard. In the front, the house barely looks different from its neighbors, but the A-frame of the roof "morphs into a modern shape" in back, he explains. To achieve the "horse saddle" shape in the rear, the roof had to be constructed piece by piece, a painstaking task, he notes.

Other unusual features of this year's project include a side entrance serving as the "front door," and a large skylight in a cathedral ceiling that brightens the kitchen, living and dining areas of the home. By placing the major source of natural light above, the skylight gives the homeowners more privacy.

"I was interested in a school that actually values building," Brainard says of choosing the Yale School of Architecture for its First-Year Building Project. "It really was a good educational experience."

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