A long-abandoned rowhouse located on the outskirts of Drexel University will soon have a rebirth as Drexel Smart House. The idea for the house was conceived, was designed, and will be run by students. The undergraduates are divided into committees each having a role in making the smart house a reality. Architecture, interior design, engineering, and digital media students are involved in the design, marketing students are helping promote the building, and MBA students are formulating an operating procedure. In all, about 200 students have had a hand in the project.
Drexel Smart House's website states the house will "serve as a 'living laboratory' for exploring cutting edge design and technology." The original structure is set up in typical residential fashion, with living space and kitchen on the first floor, bedrooms for live-in residents and guests on the second and third floors. A small addition connected at the rear of the house will contain the classroom/community spaces.
Among the sustainable design features are a vegetated roof garden, new energy efficient glazing, and a solar chimney. The solar chimney is an open vertical shaft which will naturally circulate air as a kind of passive ventilation system. Summalux, LLC, a sustainable healthy lighting company begun by Drexel Smart House members, developed a daylight simulation lighting system that will be used at the house. A Smart House senior design team developed a cool roof coating to be used at the house. In 2009, the team won an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) design competition for their coating, earning them $10,000 plus $75,000 funding over two years for researching and field testing.
In addition to the EPA award, Drexel Smart House received a $20,000 grant from Ceelite to develop a lighting prototype using their Light Emitting Capacitor (LEC) technology. Summalux is working on a biomass air filtration that uses plant life to help improve indoor air quality and a rainwater collection system automatically controlled to irrigate landscaping and green roofs. Both of these innovations could be included in the final Smart House design.
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