– Ed note. This is the third in regular series following Team New Jersey’s preparation for the 2011 Solar Decathlon

A good solar home isn’t just energy efficient and affordable. It’s well designed, functional and beautiful. That’s the philosophy behind Team New Jersey’s solar home design for the United States Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon.

The team, composed of students from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the State University of New Jersey, and Rutgers University, submitted design plans for its solar home in November and will build the home on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in October, 2011.

“We had to pick a client to build the home for,” said Jen Switala, an architecture student at the Institute of Technology. “We selected a retired couple living on the Jersey shore, where there is presumably one person in a wheelchair.”

The couple is real, and the site where the house will eventually sit is real, which meant the team had to address the unique challenges of the site in its design plans.

“We situated the house on the southwest corner of the site,” Switala said.

Instead of stairs, the home has ramps. The couple the team selected is perfect because, Switala said, the DOE requires ramps instead of stairs anyway.

The home’s design is open and flowing, Switala said. She said the team didn’t want to release the comprehensive design until the competition is closer because it is a competition, and the team doesn’t want to give away all of its ideas or lose the element of surprise.

But the design does allow for complete flow-through. The 930-square-foot one-bedroom home has no narrow hallways, no hallways at all, Switala said.

The kitchen, bathroom, laundry and water heater are all centrally located near the middle of the home, in a single wet cell, which makes assembling, transporting and reassembling the home more simple.

“The whole house can be fully circulated around,” Switala said.

The design is functional and pleasing to the eye, she said.

The house features windows all along its southern face, big open spaces and enough solar on the roof to power the house completely. It will be constructed using pre-cast concrete, which will allow the team to build the home in just one week and reassemble it in just 12 hours when its on scene in Washington, D.C., Switala said.

• Check Clean Energy Authority for periodic updates on team New Jersey’s progress in preparing for the 2011 Solar Decathlon

Image courtesy of Team New Jersey.