The biennial Solar Decathlon finished today and teams will begin the grunt work of taking their homes back or sending them off if the homes were acquired.  As we’ve done in the past, here’s a short roundup of all 19 Solar Decathlon homes for 2011.  The competition fosters the design, build, and operation of net-zero energy homes that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive.  Maryland won the entire competition, and Appalachian State was given the People’s Choice Award. 

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San Antonio-based Lake|Flato, an architectural firm with several AIA COTE Top 10 green projects, this week announced its latest endeavor in the world of prefab with the Porch House.  Porch House is an eco-friendly home that combines factory-built modules and custom outdoor elements, such as porches, breezeways, carports, and terraces.  The result is a contemporary, site-specific, LEED-certified home that can be delivered in about six- to nine-months after the inception of design.

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This is one of the latest sustainable prefab homes from Seattle-based Stillwater Dwellings.  The home has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, and 2,300 square feet with a signature soaring butterfly roofline, a great room, and 360-degree views of Sauvie Island, Mount St. Helen, Mount Hood, and Mount Rainier.  After solar panels are installed, the owners expect to submit paperwork in line with LEED Gold certification.

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The University of Tennessee recently opened the New Norris House, a 21st-century home that revisits the old Norris community project.  As background, during the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority built a model community as part of a water works project in Tennessee.  According to the New Norris House site, the old Norris homes were innovative and included electricity and heating systems for the first time in the region.

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If prefab connotes the idea that a home is standardized, perhaps this home sheds some of that.  It wasn’t fabricated to benefit from scale so much as to conserve resources by building it in the vicinity of people and services.  Ruby Springs Prefab was built in Bozeman — roughly 300 feet from both the interior designer Shack Up Studio and architect/builder Medicine Hat Inc. — and installed in a remote location in Ruby Springs, Montana.

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