Page 47 - Green Builder March-April 2017 Issue

An Evolution

Revolution

This student-built tiny house is packed with

sustainable technologies and space-saving

amenities. People are literally taking it for a spin.

BY ALAN NADITZ
T’S NOT EASY FOR A DISABLED VETERAN and a new service tiny home to OFP.
dog to become fast friends. But 30 undergraduate students from “People come from a long way to get a service dog, and it can get
Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., figured out how quite expensive for everyone involved,” Giannos says. “This home
to make it happen, and did it by thinking small. makes for a good, low-cost temporary living environment where
The group of mostly engineers, architects and builders spent veteran and dog can become acclimated with one another.”
I almost a year designing and building the rEvolve House, a rEvolve was the overall winner of SMUD’s competition and
238-square-foot trailer-mounted unit made primarily of repurposed also placed first in two of four main categories: Energy and
materials and donated green goods. The 28-foot-long by 8.5-foot-wide Communication—and first in six subcategories: Day Lighting,
home was constructed as an entry in the Sacramento Municipal Integrated Lighting, Interior Design, Kitchen, Best Program and
Utility District (SMUD)’s Tiny House competition in fall 2016. Best Tour.
At first, the emphasis was on building a compact showcase of “One of the requirements for the SMUD Tiny Home competition
engineering marvels, according to product construction manager was that the project be totally off grid,” Giannos says. “The key to
George Giannos. “We eventually shifted our focus onto what we that lay in our solar power system.”
wanted the legacy of the home to be,” he says. “We wanted the home The home achieves net zero status largely due to eight 345-watt
to feature more than just top-of-the-line sustainable technology—we SolarWorld Sunmodule solar panels that fill four Aquion Energy salt-
wanted the house to have purpose.” water batteries, which provide more than 2,700 watts of electricity.
A mutual friend and Solar Decathlon volunteer introduced The batteries are the only ones on the market with the Innovation In-
rEvolve’s builders to the San Martin, Calif., chapter of Operation stitute’s Cradle to Cradle Certified sustainability certification, accord-
Freedom Paws (OFP), which pairs service dogs with veterans ing to Giannos. All biological and technical nutrients of the batteries
returning from active duty who have physical limitations or suffer can be 100 percent recycled or composted back into the environment.
from illnesses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. An on-site rEvolve House gets its name from its attachment to Colossun’s
visit to witness the relationships between veterans and their dogs smart PV generator solar tracking system. The system literally
was all it took for the team to decide it would build, then donate the follows the sun’s position during the day, moving the entire house up

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