Ceremonial opening of the construction of the CTU team's competition object in the prestigious international competition Solar Decathlon Europe

News, 06/04/2022
Last week in Buštěhrad at the University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings (UCEEB), students - members of the CTU team in the prestigious international competition Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22 - met with the rector and other members of the CTU management, project partners and other guests. Representatives of the student team working under the guidance of pedagogues from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU introduced their competition project to those present. Then, on the UCEEB experimental site, CTU rector Vojtěch Petráček ceremonially launched the construction of the competition building. It is a wooden structure, so the traditional tapping of the foundation stone has been replaced by screwing a screw into the floor panel.

In competition Solar Decathlon Europe competition teams are tasked with designing, building and operating a sustainable, efficient and innovative house using renewable energy sources during the competition and public demonstrations. The CTU team is working on the topic "Reconstruction and extension of student dormitories" and chose the Větrník student dormitories in Prague as a model building. The design of the wood-based superstructure emphasizes prefabrication, low energy consumption, applicability to other, typologically similar buildings, all according to the principles of sustainable construction (http://firstlife.cz).

The competition jury evaluates both the overall project solution and the project and the actual implementation of a representative functional section of the so-called demonstration unit, which will be built at CTU and then transported to Wuppertal, in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), to the venue of the competition, where it will be together with houses of another 17 teams from Europe and Asia presented to the competition jury and the public during tours. The CTU competition object was chosen by the organizers for permanent placement in the local Solar Campus, for long-term verification of properties and promotion of sustainable construction.
The core of the team consists of over 40 students from various fields of bachelor's, master's and doctoral studies, mainly from CTU - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Architecture, but students from Charles University, Czech University of Life Sciences and Masaryk University also participate in the project.

The team's professional support and consultations are provided by teachers from participating faculties and research institutes, as well as by experts from practice.

The participation of the Czech student team was sponsored by the rectors of CTU and Charles University, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, the capital city of Prague, the Czech-German Chamber of Commerce and the Czech Chamber of Architects.
The whole event is very financially demanding. In addition to support from the organizer and CTU, development and construction companies, suppliers and manufacturers of building materials and elements and other entities are important supporting partners. Considerable attention is naturally focused on the final of the competition in Wuppertal, accompanied by specialist exhibitions, events for experts and the public, where the German organizers expect up to 100,000 visitors.

Important terms
  • Assembly of the competition object and testing: March–April at the University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings (UCEEB ČVUT) in Buštěhrad, then transport to the competition site
  • Construction on the competition site in Wuppertal: 20.5.–2.6.
  • The exhibition in Wuppertal is open to the public 10.6.–26.6.
  • The CTU competition object will be permanently located in the solar campus in Wuppertal for at least 3 years (until September 2025), it will continue to be accessible to the public and at the same time it will be the subject of research works in international cooperation.
Press release here.