The University’s top brass plunged three Duke Blue shovels into a plot of dirt Thursday afternoon, marking the middle of what will soon become the Delta Smart House, Duke’s “living laboratory of the future.”
The 4,500-square-foot, two-story structure will be “an experiment of what the force of student ingenuity can do,” President Richard Brodhead said. For one school year at a time, the Smart House will serve as the home to 10 undergraduates and one resident advisor who will carry out research in engineering and eventually other disciplines using the resources of the two laboratories, media room and their own bedrooms. Students will even be able to test out their experiments inside their bedrooms before extending them to the rest of the building.
Located off Swift Avenue on Central Campus, the $1.2-million building should be completed in time for its first high-tech undergraduate researchers to move in by Fall 2006. Planning for the project began in March 2004. Over 110 students collaborated with architects and construction teams until a design for the house and its highly automated features was finalized in December.
Some of the Smart House’s amenities will include facial recognition security cameras, adaptable lights and music and temperatures powered by voice command. It will also contain sensors that measure everything from pathogens and toxins to power levels and infrastructure changes over time.
Mark Younger, Pratt ’03, offered his senior project designs for the “home of the future” to kickstart the Smart House. The project then “snowballed into the incredible day that is today,” said Kristina Johnson, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering. She added that the Smart House has the potential to serve as a model for more homes to save energy and water and become more efficient.
The University also aims to partner with many different industries to promote integrated technology in housing development and provide “a fantastic learning experience for students—to build something and to experience it,” said Deborah Hill, director of communications for Pratt.
Pratt students are required to complete senior design projects as part of the engineering curriculum, and faculty will begin working together with the Smart House team to integrate parts of the completed project into that requirement. Each semester, 50 students will work toward creating new technologies and experiments for the house, and faculty members are ready to encourage and expand student involvement with Smart House technology.
In one case, freshman Bob Koutsoyannis has been collaborating with junior Omar Al-Jadda to create a type of “surround sound with LED lighting” for the media room.
“It’s every engineer’s dream to build your own thing,” Koutsoyannis said.
Ultimately, the Smart House team will integrate more interdisciplinary involvement with the new building, investigating the uses of technology and reaching out to the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and the sociology and psychology departments.
“Expect more—the best is yet to come,” Younger said. “As soon as this house is built, we’re going to have a lot to work with.”
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