The RhOME for denCity project, by Italy's Team Rome, has been declared the overall winner of this year's European Solar Decathlon competition.

Created by students and staff from Rome's Universita Delgi Studi Di Roma Tre, the winning design is a prototype top floor apartment for a four-storey housing complex proposed for the Italian capital.

The 60 square metre unit incorporates a photovoltaic system that covers the entire roof and one section of building's facade, and can automatically adjust up to 15 degrees in order to harness available solar energy.

Also included is the traditional Italian design feature of loggia (or gallery), which opens to the outside, providing passive cross-ventilation and creating a flexible floor plan that can be adapted as required for future expansions.

The full four-storey structure would utilise the thermal mass of its concrete base, with a central, structural core of latticed, reinforced concrete beams. This core will then support a lightweight, wood frame exterior, braced with steel St Andrew’s crosses.

The Solar Decathlon Europe aims to promote, educate, and further the development of holistic sustainable architecture and the use of solar power.

RhOME denCity competed against 19 other sustainable houses from around the world to take out the competion's grand prize, with second and third places go to Philéas by France's Atlantic Challenge, and Prêt-à-Loger by Dutch team TU Delft, respectively.

Courtesy Inhabitat and Gizmag

Architecture & Design Team

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