Today, I was invited to a design charette hosted by SIAT’s Ron Wakkary. It was a 2.5 hour gathering with about 15 talented designers and thinkers from SFU. The goal of the charette was to come up with interaction design concepts for a solar powered house. The focus was partly on raising occupant awareness of their power consumption habits, but most importantly to enrichen the experience of living in the house.
The project is a big one, with 2 other universities in Canada joining SFU to form “Team North”. The concept house is called “North House”, and will be one of 20 entries to the 2009 Solar Decathlon, put on by the US Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
