Individual Projects - Viability of Autonomous Homes
For the AE510 term project, I am working with Yasmina Shields to research current technologies in the field of sustainable buildings, specifically autonomous housing. Before going deeper into our intended term paper, I wanted to see how Philadelphia compares to the rest of the U.S. on this topic.
“When it comes to sustainable housing, the city of Philadelphia ranks fourteenth in the nation according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency report. Fortunately, that’s starting to change.” [1] In the next four years, there are already five LEED Platinum projects to be constructed in residential areas. One of the most notable projects will be the abandoned block at 17th and Carpenter Streets. Once a line of abandoned warehouses, it will soon be home to eleven town houses, six condos, and a corner commercial space all built to LEED Platinum standard. We hope to incorporate future projects like these into our final paper. Hopefully, similar projects will become commonplace and raise Philadelphia to the top of the list.
As rising Seniors, we are actively looking for ideas for our Senior Design Project which is why we chose our proposed topic. One competition that is in the field of autonomous housing is the Solar Decathlon Competition. Hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, collegiate teams design energy-efficient houses entirely powered by the sun that is affordable, attractive and easy to live in [2]. As the name suggests, the decathlon consists of 10 contests: Architecture, Market Appeal, Engineering, Communications, Affordability, Comfort Zone, Appliances, Home Life, Commuting, and Energy Balance. This relates to intelligent building as autonomous housing is creating intelligent features to make everyday living easier.
In our term paper, we will focus on features of autonomous housing as well as relative costs to implement these features into pre-existing homes. One of the greatest challenges I can foresee is not being able to find enough data. For example, we also want to focus on how autonomous homes can assist the elderly or disabled, but there is most likely little to no research on the topic. Using the article Smart homes - Current features and future perspectives [3], we are able to obtain a plethora of data on current features of autonomous housing, but not on the impact of human living.
Despite this, I believe we can construct an exciting and educational term paper.
References:
[1] http://www.keystoneedge.com/features/philadelphiasustainablehousing0620.aspx
[2] http://www.solardecathlon.gov/
[3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512209002606
EDIT: Comments left on Faisal's and A.J.'s original posts.
I like that you mention using autonomous houses for people who require assisted living, but I wonder how far this application could go. Small-scale options like alert buttons connected to telephones are already very widely used. I wonder if this could be extended to having a house with appliances which track medication and make sure that the occupants are eating, etc. This would all require quite a bit of non-autonomous technology, though (such as telephone and/or internet connections).
ReplyDeleteI think the topic chosen will be an enlightening one seeing how the future of buildings are sustainable and ultimately autonomous ones. I believe that we are decades away from a fully autonomous houses that can interact with the occupant on a level that is beneficial. They have washers and dryers that can email you or text you when your laundry is done, but how much does that help? Going back to what you two want to talk about: impact on human living. I believe that the first autonomous buildings will be the ones of the rich and hospitals.
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