The Fab Lab Solar House, developed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia is currently in Madrid, taking part in the Solar Decathlon Europe Event until the 27th of June.

The timber house, which exclusively uses solar energy, actually produces more energy than it consumes, making it possible to generate power, food and utensils. Once the Solar Decathlon event is over, the Fab Lab House will then be launched onto the commercial market, selling for around €200,000.

Vicente Guallart, Director of the IAAC, says that the objective is to foster connected self-sufficient buildings, and in order to construct the dwelling, state-of-the-art digital manufacturing machine tools were used:

"We printed our house, we didn’t build it. With our manufacturing machine tools we can produce anything from a chip to a house ", says Guallart, who advocates the recovery of a number of forgotten practices.

"We must produce things again in cities. We produced our solar house with researchers, in accordance with medieval principles: the designer and the builder is the same person.".

IAAC's Fab Lab Solar project involved architects and experts from 20 countries as well as the Center for Bits and Atoms of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the world network of Fab Labs. The project was brought to fruition in collaboration with an important group of firms, headed by Endesa, which fosters research into energy efficiency, Schneider Electric, which provided electrical solutions, and Visoren, a leading Spanish company in the field of subsidised housing for rent. 

The dwelling consists of 26 m3 white pine timber parts cut digitally with lasers and assembled to produce curved and undulating forms. This organic design is conceived to create a flexible ‘parametrical’ structure, adaptable to the climate of different countries and respectful towards its site and immediate surroundings - even the foundations of the house raise the floor structure above ground, thereby creating a kitchen-garden area for the occupiers to be self sufficient in terms of vegetables. 

The prototype, which will compete at the Solar Decathlon, creates an indoor habitable surface area of 70 square metres, arranged like a loft for a family of four. The interior is reinforced by natural insulators and depends as much on an underfloor heating system as on a system of cross ventilation that replaces conventional air-conditioning apparatus.

Energy is captured thanks to a roof composed of flexible photovoltaic panels that may be moulded into a wide variety of shapes.

Using this technology, the house has the capacity to generate 15 kilowatts, which means that the end-of-year balance will invariably be positive, since it will feed excess energy back into the network and receive energy from the network when the climatic conditions make it impossible to produce its own.

The Solar Decathlon Europe itself is a sustainable architecture contest, instituted by the US Department of Energy and being held in Spain for the first time this month, aims to explore energy-efficient homes that use solar energy only, prompting reflection on energy consumption, climate change and sustainable development.