Exhibition AIR HOUSE – CAUTION CONSTRUCTION! at the National Technical Library

The Solar Decathlon is an international student competition in building ecological solar houses, in which 20 selected university teams from around the world are tasked with designing, building, and operating an energy self-sufficient solar house. The finals will take place in October 2013 in California. The goal of the competition is to promote the development of sustainable architecture and to bring this concept closer to the general public. The competition buildings, which students design, finance, and construct themselves, demonstrate that intelligent solutions can provide a pleasant indoor environment while also generating enough energy for household needs.

The ČVUT team is the first representative of the Czech Republic in the eleven-year history of the competition. The project is being carried out under the auspices of the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at ČVUT, the Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at ČVUT, the Czech Chamber of Architects, the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

The exhibition presents AIR House, the competition building that students from the ČVUT team have been working on for nearly two years, led by students from the Faculty of Architecture in collaboration with the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and Faculty of Transportation. The project is currently reaching its final phase, and students are beginning to construct the competition house with their own efforts.

AIR House will be presented in the National Technical Library through individual architectural elements, materials, and technologies. Most of them will be covered by the facade or ceiling after the construction is completed; however, without them, AIR House would not function. Each building consists, just like the human body, of interrelated systems that together create an original whole. The exhibition exhibits will be divided into four parts analogous to the systems of the human body. There will be elements of the skeletal system (load-bearing structure), skin (facade), tissues (interior), and vascular and nervous system (HVAC and installations). The visitor will be able to perceive the house as a complex work and familiarize themselves with the details of its individual parts. The exhibition is a thank you to the partners who support the student project and without whom AIR House could not become a reality.

The opening will feature a lecture by the team consultant Ing. Jan Žemlička on teamwork and collective responsibility. The lecture will take place on June 5, 2013, at 5 PM in the Balling Hall on the ground floor of the National Technical Library. The exhibition will last until July 11, 2013.


Faculty of Architecture ČVUT, Department of Design II
Thákurova 9, 166 34 Prague 6 – Dejvice
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+420 604 695 491