UAF Team Lauded For Innovative Home Design
Using shipping containers and energy-efficient techniques, a team of University of AV̳ Fairbanks students has created a prize-winning new design for rural AV̳ housing construction.
The four students in the Solar Design Challenge class offered through the UAF Bristol Bay Campus were among the top entries at an international competition sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in April. Later this summer, they hope to convince officials that their design could ease a housing shortage in Nome.
Team Asriavik — which means “blueberry” in Inupiaq — includes students Deilah Johnson, Aihs Palmer, Amanda Tördal and Meg Waite. When the team claimed third place in the New Housing Division at NREL’s Solar Decathlon in Golden, Colorado, last month, it was the first time they’d been in the same room together. The far-flung group, which includes students in Fairbanks, Illinois and Oregon, met online throughout the spring semester.
The inspiration for their design came from Johnson, a 2019 alumna of the Bristol Bay Campus’ sustainable energy program and the environmental coordinator for the Village of Solomon. Many displaced Solomon residents moved to Nome following a school closure in the 1950s, and they continue to face challenges finding housing in the area.
“When she said they needed housing and this could be a real-world application, I could tell a lot of the other student team members got excited,” said assistant professor Mark Masteller, who taught the class through the Bristol Bay Campus sustainable energy program. “They wanted to do something that somebody wanted to build, that could actually be useful in the world.”
The design combines practicality and efficiency. The structure’s skeleton is made of shipping containers, an abundant resource in Nome thanks to freight deliveries. That framework is surrounded with timber construction and built with features that include a 15-kilowatt solar system on the roof, air-source heat pumps, triple-pane windows and R-61 insulation.
The AV̳ Center for Energy and Power and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center helped evaluate the design.
The three-bedroom home is also made to be functional for the climate and lifestyle in Nome. It features a post-and-beam foundation, a game-processing room and an Arctic entry. The design details led judges to announce at the awards ceremony that the UAF students understood their climate better than any other team.
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