Painting lessons, masonry work, plumbing, wiring, cooking and all that goes into constructing a house and building a home is what a pretty large team from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay is learning to do. The team will not only construct its mansion and live in it, but also host soirees. The party is not in Powai, but the romantic Chateau de Versailles in Paris.
What is so grand about the 600 sq ft house is that it will not consume any electricity, yet provide all the comforts of a European home.
Students from IIT-B will the first Indian team-team shunya-to make it to the Solar Decathlon, an international design competition in which students have to design, build and operate the most enery efficient solar-powered house. The competition is held by the US Department of energy that takes place biennially. Students from Rachana Sansad will provide the architectural inputs.
“The idea is to build a prototype of a home that can be suited to the Indian middle class. We have set a financial target of building the house for about Rs 30 lakh when it is industrially produced,” said faculty advisor Rangan Banerjee.
Several departments from the institute are involved in building this house and the team will start constructing it in August; the competition in France will be held in June 2014.
“There are some teams in this competition that have been shortlisted for the third time. We are up against some very seasoned teams and well-versed people,” said Parth Bhatia, a student of the energy sciences and engineering department.
The team is looking outside the campus too for ideas-from the best material to build the energy-efficient home, to the paint that must be applied, to how to put the waste to better use. After the house is built, students will ship it to Paris and construct it again in 14 days. “Students will live in the house and host a party one evening for the judges,” said Puneet Batra, another student.
“After the competition, students will bring this house back to India and it will have a permanent place on the IIT-B campus where it will be a living research lab for anyone to try something new,” said Vishnu Chandak, another student on the team.
Said faculty Monika Jain, “The idea is to integrate processes and allow students to work together to produce a product that is professional”.
Source: Times of India
