Developments at Virginia Tech
The official Tumblr of Virginia Tech's Office of University Development, located at the Gateway Center on the corner of University City Blvd., and Prices Fork Rd., in Blacksburg, Va.
This website is maintained by the Development Communications team headed by Albert Raboteau, Gary Cope, and Chuck George.
WVTF public radio aired a feature on Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus this morning, May 17. You can listen to it above, or click here to read the transcript.
The story references the Virginia Tech students and faculty who became the first university team ever to receive the American Institute of Architects Honor Award, which is one of the most prestigious awards in architecture.
In case you haven’t seen the award-winning solar house, check out this video produced earlier this year.
WVTF is a service of Virginia Tech.
In January, the Virginia Tech Lumenhaus team was notified that it had been selected to receive a 2012 American Institute of Architects Honor Award for its work on the solar house.
It marked the first time the AIA has ever awarded the honor to a team of student architects. The team will officially receive its award later this month.
The university’s award-winning solar house received substantial support by way of private giving. In fact, many of the successes we see at Virginia Tech benefit in some way from private giving, whether it’s scholarships, professorships, a new building, or program support.
The My Virginia Tech video series aims to give an inside look at Virginia Tech through the words and experiences of students, faculty, and staff. Get to know the things that make Virginia Tech a special place. In this video, meet Liz, a salsa-dancing industrial design student in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.
You also will see a reference to Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus, which earlier this year received a prestigious 2012 AIA Honor Award. The award-winning solar house received substantial support by way of private giving. In fact, many of the successes we see at Virginia Tech benefit in some way from private giving, whether it’s scholarships, professorships, a new building, or program support.
Earlier today, Virginia Tech announced that Lumenhaus, the unversity’s award-winning solar house, has received a 2012 AIA Honor Award for Architects from the American Institute of Architecture.
This is a very prestigious award - considered one of the highest honors awarded to practicing architects. This marks the first time the organization has ever bestowed the Honor Award to a university team.
The video above was shot in 2009, a year before Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus won first place at the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe. We’ve been following the solar house since it was under construction and it’s been a lot of fun to watch it evolve into the award-winning project it has become.
Students, professors and advisors put in a lot of hard work to create the award-winning solar house. The project also received substantial support in the form of private giving. To all those who played a role in the success of Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus - thank you and congratulations!
Only two weeks left to take a tour of lumenhaus on the Drillfield before it moves on to Chicago next month!
Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS won the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe competition held in Spain back in June. The solar house is back in Blacksburg and on public display on the Drill Field. Faculty, staff and students who worked on the project are giving daily tours. (The photos above were taken Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010.)
Move-in for the fall 2010 semester begins on Wednesday, Aug. 18, but some students have already begun the pilgrimage back to Blacksburg. When they make their way to the Duck Pond side of the Drill Field, they’ll find the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe championship set up for display.
For those that may have missed the news, Virginia Tech architecture and engineering students took first place overall in the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe competition with their entry, Lumenhaus.
Josh Franklin, a second-year grad student studying landscape architecture, and Daniel Beck, a third-year grad student studying architecture, were out in the heat and humidity today (Aug. 12, 2010) working on reassembling the highly portable solar-powered home.
Lumenhaus will be on display with public tours through October, at which point it may be on its way back to New York, or to Chicago, according to Josh. The house will be completed, with some improvements, on Monday, Aug. 16, in plenty of time for students and their parents who will be coming back next week for move-in.
Are you going to stop by take a tour?
Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS team recently won first place overall at the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe. Last summer, we documented LUMENHAUS’ move from its production facility on Plantation Road in Blacksburg to the Gables Shopping Center parking lot where the team wrapped up construction before moving it to Washington, D.C., to be displayed to the public. From there it traveled to New York City’s Time Square.”
LUMENHAUS then traveled to Spain to compete in the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe and won first place. Learn more at facebook.com/lumenhaus.
Recently, Virginia Tech’s Web site (www.vt.edu) featured a spotlight story about architecture professor Dennis Jones and his Quantum Matric program that organizes content into a three-dimensional computerized cube.
Last summer, we shot some video of Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS, or Solar House, project. While at the facility where the house was being built, we shot some video of Jones and his system, which was used to organize content and create a 3D model of LUMENHAUS. Now, we obviously can’t display what they saw in 3D, but this video shows a little of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on. See our original LUMENHAUS video: vimeo.com/5995091
Lumenhaus — the 800-square-foot that Virginia Tech students built to showcase energy-saving technology — has been set up in Times Square in New York. ABC’s “Good Morning America” did a segment on the house today, which is online (after a short commercial). Some time back I wrote about how donations helped make this student project possible. It’s great to see how much interest there’s been in the house nationwide.
