It's all about the architecture! Worth the most amount of points of the ten contests, the Architecture competition requires teams to design with the age-old Vitruvian ideals of firmitas (structural integrity), utilitas (commodity, or function and comfort), and venustas (delight, or aesthetic appeal).

But we must do more - we must integrate the latest in solar and home-automation technology to make an easily useable, functional, and beautiful house!

Solar Decathlon houses must be small, but also extremely comfortable - the kind of house that you want to spend time in. The Dwelling contest evaluates both the livability and the buildability of our designs.

Solar Decathlon houses take years to design, and every step along the way must be documented. Teams receive points for how well they tell the story of their evolving designs, and for demonstrating how they've made the most energy-efficient decisions.

The Solar Decathlon is meant to reach a wide audience - not just the design and construction community, but the whole world. We're being judged on how well we reach out to the public with our house tours, website, publications, and branding efforts.

Our houses must be not just beautiful but comfortable, and this means maintaining a pleasant interior temperature and humidity. Keeping the interior comfortable without wasting energy means designing and building the house with good insulation and energy efficiency. We'll be judged on how well we can keep the temperature and humidity within a narrow range of comfort throughout the week (72-76 °F, 45% - 50% humidity).

Appliances account for 20% of home energy use in the US. The Solar Decathlon intends to show that the sun is capable of powering all of the appliances you need. We'll be judged on our ability to refrigerate food, cook dinner, wash dishes, do laundry and power a home office and entertainment center. Using the most efficient appliances available can give a team a distinct advantage (and reduce any house's energy bills).

This contest proves that solar energy can provide all the hot water that your home needs. We'll be using solar hot water for our dishwasher and washing machine, sinks, shower, and winter space heating. We'll compete in "shower tests" to provide 15 gallons of 110°F water in 10 minutes or less.

Solar Decathlon houses need to provide ideal lighting at a minimum of energy use. This means using the most efficient new lighting technologies, but it also means incorporating time-tested strategies of natural light control and daylighting. We'll be judged on the objective levels of lighting in our house, but also on the aesthetic appeal of our lighting design.

At the heart of the Solar Decathlon is the idea that our houses can produce more energy than they use. Energy collected by each house's PV panels is stored in battery banks, which are checked at the beginning and end of the contest. Points are awarded for batteries with a higher storage charge at the end of the competition than at the beginning.

The sun can power not just our houses, but also our vehicles. Each day, teams use excess energy generated by their houses' PV systems to charge electric cars. We then compete to see how many miles this extra energy will take us.

> Competition > The Ten Contests