UCI is participating as part of a four-university/college team called Team Orange County. One of their guiding design principles is ‘drought resiliency' – a term used by the UC Irvine civil engineering student who is in charge of the team's water systems and construction management for their entry “Casa del Sol”.
Casa del Sol features concepts which makes the design able to produce food for its residence in a self-contained and waste-reducing manner. Other college teams are competing against Team Orange County so the public can experience an entire “neighborhood” of ideas for the foreseeable future.
The Solar Decathlon is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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