Team website: NeighborHub |
- renewable energy and
- urban and hydroponic gardening,
Team Deliverables
Design Philosophy
NeighborHub is more than a house.
The Swiss Team’s goal is to create a shared space that helps to build and sustain the community around it.
By demonstrating innovative solutions and providing a space to collaborate, NeighborHub has the potential to support Switzerland’s urban and energy transition by emphasizing seven themes:
- renewable energy,
- water management,
- waste management,
- mobility,
- food,
- material choices, and
- biodiversity.
This flexibility ensures that, over time, the house will meet the needs of the greatest number of occupants while using the least amount of land and facilitating strong connections within the neighborhood. NeighborHub’s flexibility is illustrated in elements such as the façades, which support solar panels, plants, aquaponics, and a solar dryer. Inside, easily movable furniture allows spaces to be reconfigured to accommodate different groups.
Photos
Features and Technologies
Laminated veneer lumber is used for the house and the furniture within the house. This structural product provides significant dimensional flexibility in the design and allows small trees to be converted into larger planks.
A productive building envelope surface includes walls
Photos
Features and Technologies
Laminated veneer lumber is used for the house and the furniture within the house. This structural product provides significant dimensional flexibility in the design and allows small trees to be converted into larger planks.
A productive building envelope surface includes walls
- that produce energy from active solar electric PV panels and that
- collect the heat from the sun for water and space heating using passive solar strategies.
- collect water and
- grow food.
- a photovoltaic (solar electric) system, the team is also using
- dye-sensitized “Gratzel” solar cells to generate electricity and
- team-built solar thermal panels for hot water and space heating.
There are two vertical greenhouses, one with an aquaponic system for breeding fish.
A zero-water “dry” toilet uses worms to treat and recycle waste.
More than just a house, NeighborHub is intended as a collaborative space for a community to discuss issues of energy and sustainability, and to provide a space for community activities such as cooking meals and hosting workshops.
Video
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Market Strategy
The Swiss Team believes that NeighborHub provides the ultimate solution to critical challenges of climate change and resource depletion—issues the Swiss people care about deeply. Rather than being a traditional home, NeighborHub is intended to be a community space in a suburban neighborhood. The Swiss Team is targeting Switzerland’s “Energy Cities”—cities that are leading the energy transition by promoting renewable energy, eco-friendly transportation, and the responsible use of resources—for NeighborHub. More specifically, the Swiss Team has chosen the urban center of Fribourg, which is one of Switzerland’s Energy Cities, to demonstrate NeighborHub’s viability.
The team engaged stakeholders from
- private industry,
- city government, and
- an energy supplier
What's Next
After the competition, NeighborHub will come back to the blueFACTORY in the Innovation Square of Fribourg, where the house is being built. This site is home to the smart living lab, a research and development center for the built environment of the future, which brings together
Samuel Cotture
+41 79 515 37 12
Neither the United States, nor the Department of Energy, nor Energetics Incorporated, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness for any purpose of any technical resources or data attached or otherwise presented here as reference material.
Competition
Teams
Team Contacts
Contests
Rules
Juries
Product Directory
After the competition, NeighborHub will come back to the blueFACTORY in the Innovation Square of Fribourg, where the house is being built. This site is home to the smart living lab, a research and development center for the built environment of the future, which brings together
- the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL),
- the School of Engineering and Architecture in Fribourg (HEIA-FR) and
- the University of Fribourg (UNIFR).
Samuel Cotture
+41 79 515 37 12
Neither the United States, nor the Department of Energy, nor Energetics Incorporated, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness for any purpose of any technical resources or data attached or otherwise presented here as reference material.
Competition
Teams
Team Contacts
- Las Vegas
- Maryland
- Missouri S&T
- Netherlands
- Northwestern
- Swiss Team
- Team Alabama
- Team Daytona Beach
- UC Berkeley/U of Denver
- UC Davis
- Wash U – St. Louis
- Washington State
- West Virginia
Contests
Rules
Juries
Product Directory
Comments
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