Department of Energy that encourages budding designers to create high-performance structures powered by renewable energy. The Solar Futures House began as an entry in the Solar Decathlon, a national collegiate competition organized by the U.S. Miranda / Los Angeles Times)Īnd, true to its name, this is a structure that prioritizes environmental concerns. (A quick geography explainer: While Woodbury has a Burbank address, a piece of the campus, where the house was built, is located within Los Angeles city limits - hence the L.A. And it was built by Emergent, a 3-D printing construction firm based in Redding. It is the first such permitted structure in the city of Los Angeles, according to Woodbury architecture dean Heather Flood. The Solar Futures House, as it is formally known, was designed by Woodbury architecture students and constructed out of concrete using the latest 3-D printing technology. What makes it truly remarkable is who built it - and how. Slender, carefully staggered floor-to-ceiling windows gently illuminate the interior. The 425-square-foot home is contained by a gently curving concrete form equipped with a generous porch and a dramatic sloping roof. Tucked alongside a large dorm building on the fringes of Woodbury University’s campus in Burbank is a small but very eye-catching house.
