Glenn Murcutt-Solar Decathlon

Glenn Murcutt’s speech at the architecture contest award ceremony held on 20th June 2010 at
Villa Solar in Madrid

Having been a member of the first Solar Decathlon conducted in Washington D.C. in 2002 I can confirm that the standard of design reached in this Solar Decathlon exceeds the quality achieved in Washington by a large measure.

It has been an enormous improvement.

The jury congratulates the Spanish Government for having brought the Solar Decathlon to
Europe, the American Department of Energy and the Politécnica Madrid as well as Luis
Fernández-Galiano who has been totally involved and commited to this event.

We also congratulate all of you students and your respective universities for your commitment to the realization of such a high level of excellence in the constructed buildings.

However, there are two issues that emerged during the jury deliberations, which we thought
should be addressed so as to improve results even further in the future an I’ll mention them
broadly.

The competition brief has been modelled on the North American experience where single dwellings are able to be afforded – or were, given this international economic crisis – on single
sites, resulting in some very mixed quality suburban developments and often poor environments.

It is the view of the jury that the European Solar Decathlon must address the medium to high
density condition in the future of cities.

This does not mean that the 2010 Solar Decathlon has not addressed important and immediate issues facing our environment – it does by promoting many innovative elements of technology that can be incorporated in the more urban context.

Secondly, there appears to be an emphasis on the use of technology in construction to address
environmental issues. So, passive consideration has still not been sufficiently addressed such as the orientation of buildings, the simple construction, the incorporation of natural ventilation, the ability of opening up and closing down of a building, much in the way one maximizes the performance of a yacht – or even the way one dresses according to seasonal variations.

So less reliance on technological solutions alone and a lot more on working with nature and her seasonal variations, minimizing the use of technological solutions is important.

http://archrecord.construction.com/archrecord2/work/2010/september/Solar_Decathlon.asp