Duke Breaks Ground April 21 On "Smart House" Engineering Research Lab

Note to editors: Design renderings of the Duke Smart House are available on request to Deborah Hill, communications director for the Pratt School of Engineering, at (919) 660-8403.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering will break ground Thursday, April 21, for the Duke Smart House -- a 4,500-square-foot undergraduate live-in engineering research laboratory.

The highly automated, two-story house will include such features as systems to filter out unwanted background noise; lights, music and temperatures that are powered by voice commands; efficient cooling systems; monitors to measure power consumption on a room-by-room basis; security cameras to perform facial recognition analysis; and indoor environmental quality monitors to create a low-toxin, low-pathogen environment. The house will have a "green roof" to control water runoff and use embedded fiber optic strands and acoustic emission sensors throughout the structure and foundation to detect any movement, cracks or breaks over time.

The Duke Smart House project provides undergraduate students a chance to gain practical design experience, as well as learn about project management and team-building. Pratt Dean Kristina M. Johnson said she hopes the Smart House will serve as a catalyst for outreach to the community and a broad range of industry.

"We believe smart homes can improve the quality of life for people of all ages and incomes," Johnson said. "The Duke Smart House creates a tremendous opportunity for partnering with industry and, ultimately, research conducted at the Smart House can influence the residential market for smart, integrated technology."

Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony will begin at 5 p.m. at the Smart House site, located at the corner of Faber and Powe streets on Duke's Central Campus. The event is open to the public.

The estimated cost of construction for the Duke Smart House is $1.2 million, supported by funding from the Lord Foundation, Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and private donors. Construction will be completed in spring 2006, with the first student residents moving in that fall.

The Duke Smart House will be a residence-laboratory of five double bedrooms, a single room for a resident adviser, two to three full bathrooms, one half bath, kitchen, living room, study-library, laboratory, mechanical utilities space and a central courtyard. In compliance with all dorm safety and building codes, it will house 10 undergraduate students and one resident adviser each year following its completion.

Johnson said that one of Pratt's goals is to redefine the concept of a smart home. A truly smart home is one that incorporates both high-tech and low-tech solutions to create the best living environment for a particular homeowner. Smart homes can also be environmentally friendly and affordable, she said.

The smart house concept grew out of a conversation between Johnson and Mark Younger, who at the time was a senior majoring in electrical and computer engineering. Younger spent a semester planning a Duke Engineering Living Technology Advancement project as an independent study course topic, and then launched a 20-student design project in the spring of 2003 that continues to grow.

After graduating in 2003, Younger was hired as project manager, serving as a mentor for student teams and the liaison between Duke and the architectural and construction teams.

"Duke's Smart House will differentiate itself from other university smart house projects in two fundamental ways," Younger said. "First, students actually live in the house while developing the systems in and around it. Second, the project's broad cross-disciplinary nature gives students invaluable interaction with engineers specializing in fields other than their own as they prepare for the real world."

The Smart House incorporates civil and environmental engineering, electrical and computer engineering, materials science and mechanical engineering, and even biomedical engineering. The project also draws on computer science, environmental science and human factors disciplines.

Considerable student-led research already has been conducted, with some projects directly supporting the design and functionality of the house, and other projects slated for implementation after construction. More than 110 students have taken part in research-design projects since summer 2003, averaging more than 40 students per semester. Student teams have tackled 45 different projects, and Younger has purposely created interdisciplinary student teams to boost the educational value of the experience.

But ultimately, Younger said he hopes Duke's students are not the only ones to benefit from the project. "We want to help individual homeowners make their own ideas for a smart home a reality," he said. Smart homes are much more commonplace in Europe and Asia than in the U.S.

Industry partners providing building material, equipment and expertise so far include Solargenix, Echelon, HAI, StrikeIron, Danaher Power Solutions, American Hydrotech, Carolina Stalite, Universal Lighting, Green Roof Plants and Eaton Power Solutions.

Architect Frank Harmon designed the overall architecture for the house, in collaboration with a team of Smart House students.

For more information, visit the Smart House website, www.smarthouse.duke.edu, which features a daily "smart technology" news feed and a blog for people to pose questions about technology.