The Solar Decathlon Europe is an international competition among universities which promotes research in the development of efficient houses. The objective of the participating teams is to design and build houses that consume as few natural resources as possible and produce minimum waste products during their life cycle.

All of these teams are supported by one or more universities and have the economic and technical support from institutions and companies. The main figures during the whole process, from the design to the last phase of the competition in Madrid are the students, known as ‘Decathletes’, who are guided by a professor, the ‘Faculty Advisor’.

For further information please visit: www.sdeurope.org

It is important that ecological objectives are not achieved to the detriment of social objectives. Currently the cost of building nearly-Zero or positive energy housing is over stretching the budget of non-for-profit housing providers represented by CECODHAS Housing Europe.

Social housing must be suitable for a large variety of users and require limited and simple maintenance and possibilities for adaptation throughout their life cycle. Simplicity, scale and standardization are key.

For this reason, innovations are looked for in design and execution processes, applied techniques and materials, as well as in use and maintenance aspects and potential partnerships and alternative types of procurement. The innovations must be applicable on a larger scale, be liable to repetition and preferably offer sufficient flexibility in terms of design.