It’s summer, you know what that means… Organizational changes! No? Just me? Okay…
You may have noticed our brand new website, social media handles, and team members; and so, without further ado, allow me to introduce Sustainable Housing at California, or SHAC.
SHAC is a new student-led organization that combines the previously-established THIMBY (Tiny House in My Backyard) and Solar Decathlon clubs. Both THIMBY and Solar Decathlon, in their individual standings, work on projects centered around environmentally sustainable and innovative housing. We are excited to maximize resources and talents under the SHAC umbrella to have a greater impact. Although the summer is just beginning, we have already welcomed a lot of motivated new faces and gotten some great work done.
This semester, the THIMBY team is working on their third project. THIMBY 3.0 is a (tiny) house on wheels to be stationed in the city of Richmond. We have begun working on grants and funding proposals, brainstorming design ideas, and establishing local partnerships. This tiny house is slightly different from past THIMBY iterations, as it will hopefully form a municipal partnership to pilot Richmond’s ‘tiny house on wheels’ ordinance, which will ideally establish a presence of a cost-effective and scalable affordable housing concept. Accordingly, in addition to low-cost and energy-efficiency, we will be taking a low-weight approach to design and construction. The THIMBY team is excited to begin their third project working towards advancing ‘tiny houses’ as a model of affordable, environmentally sustainable living.
The Solar Decathlon team will be participating in the Solar Decathlon China Build Challenge 2021 in collaboration with Harbin Institute of Technology. The Build Challenge is a 2-year period of competition to prepare creative solutions for real-world issues in the building industry, where 15 international teams will showcase their final, fully-functional homes in Zhangjiakou, the site for the 2022 Winter Olympics. We are in the early stages of the competition, and currently working with the Harbin team on fine-tuning our proposal.
As you can see, there’s a whole lot of stuff to do before school starts this fall, so stick with us ‘cause SHAC is gonna do it all.
