The house will be built by the Southface Energy Institute on land next to the popular SciTrek Museum and adjacent to Renaissance Park. The location is a five-minute walk from the Atlanta Civic Center rail station along the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transportation Authority (MARTA) system.
The three-floor facility, which will be available for tours during the Olympics, will showcase residential and some commercial energy-efficient and renewable-energy technologies that are environmentally friendly, cost-effective for homeowners and available on today's market. The house will have a passive solar design, but with traditional or contemporary styling that will blend in with other houses on the market in the Atlanta area.
It will have approximately 6,000 square feet of space on the three levels with an attached two-car garage. The house will be open to the public for up to two years after the Olympics. After that two-year period, the facility will become the permanent home for the Southface Resource Center and will be available for tours and training sessions. Social events are being planned at the home to coincide next summer with the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
The main level will showcase residential equipment and appliances. The second level will demonstrate an office/commercial environment while the basement level will operate as a training facility and feature commercial building systems. The interior of the facility will feature as many energy-efficient, environmentally safe elements as possible.
Almost all components and technologies in the building will be donated. Land for the house is being provided by the City of Atlanta. While the facility will look residential, it will function in both residential and commercial capacities.
DOE, ORNL, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will provide technical assistance in the design and construction phases of the house. Assistance is being provided to the project by local and state agencies, including the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, Georgia Division of Energy Resources and the City of Atlanta. Private corporations have donated major elements of the facility, including the foundation, foam core panels, high-performance windows, a variety of super-efficient heating and cooling equipment and photovoltaic roofing materials that generate electricity from sunlight.
Additional sponsors are being sought for other innovative energy and environmental technologies, as well as for the development of education and research materials. For more information, contact Pat Love at 865-576-7942.
ORNL, one of DOE's multiprogram national research and development facilities, is managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, which also manages the Oak Ridge K-25 Site and the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.