Duke Smart Home Accepting
Residency Applications

Thursday, January 10th 2008

Want to live in the Smart Home? The Smart Home is a live-in laboratory dedicated to advancements in smarter living. ALL Duke Students are eligible to apply.

The Duke Smart Home Program is now taking applications for Fall 2007, Summer 2007, and Spring 2008.  The first deadline is February 1st. Residents must be sophomores or older when they enter.  Apply now! For more information, please email Tom.Rose@duke.edu

More about the Smart Home
Duke students and their advisors designed The Home Depot Smart Home to be adaptable, innovative, environmentally sustainable and technologically integrated. The design should achieve at least Gold LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.
Smart Home Video

Some of the home's features include:

• A green roof comprised of living plants that will insulate the home from the cold of winter and the heat of summer. The roof's soil also pre-filters water that passes through it, removing pollutants picked up from the atmosphere.
  
  
• Two solar power systems, including a solar thermal unit on the roof that helps heat water for showers and dishwashing, and photovoltaic panels in the front of the house which transform sunlight into electricity that powers lights in the dorm.
  
  
• Two rainwater collection systems to irrigate the property and provide water for toilets and the clothes washing machine.
  
  
• Lumber that was harvested from sustainable forests, and trim that includes Southern yellow pine from the Duke Forest.
  
  
• DensArmor Plus® drywall, a new generation of paperless drywall designed with a moisture-resistant core to resist mold.
  
  
• Fiber optic wiring throughout the home that provides the dorm with the capability for spectacular internet speeds up to 40 Gigabytes per second.

In developing the dormitory, which will continue to evolve, Duke Smart Home Program students are encouraged to explore new technologies that aren't addressed through commercially available technology. Design workshops adjacent to the living areas of the home provide the ability to modify and deploy new technology, and adjustable wall panels open to accommodate changes.

"The coolest and most exciting things will be the collaborative projects that can be added into a building that is designed to be taken apart, fitted with new projects, and monitored," said resident Tim Gu, a junior from Greendale, Wisc. "As a resident, I will get to play, test and tinker with these projects and work with the project teams to improve their designs."

Once they move in, the 10 residents will automatically become ambassadors of sustainable lifestyles, conducting tours and answering questions about energy-efficient, environmentally responsible living in a stylish, high-technology setting.

The residence hall and research laboratory is the centerpiece of a much larger program in which more than 100 students are conducting research on smart living. Primarily focused on undergraduates, the program encourages students from different academic disciplines to form teams and explore smart ways to use technology in the home.

"Nothing could make this program more successful than for it to continue to grow beyond engineering and become a Duke-wide endeavor," said Robert Clark, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering. "We are going to create a broad range of projects in the dorm —from sociology majors studying group dynamics and technology adoption, to economics majors evaluating the costs and benefits of new technology, to environmental science students working on the dorm and the surrounding landscape."

The Home Depot’s sponsorship is valued at an estimated $2 million in cash and in-kind donations over a three-year period to help cover the cost of the dorm construction.

"Part of what makes this program so exciting to students is the opportunity to connect with industry," said Russell Holloway, associate dean for industry and corporate relations. "Since the project started in 2003, students have aggressively recruited companies into creative partnerships. The response from these companies has been overwhelmingly positive. They love our students’ initiative. These relationships have led to research collaborations, donations to the dorm and internships and jobs for Duke students."

"The Home Depot is proud to be the naming sponsor of the Smart Home and strategic partner with Duke University on the development of key smart home technologies," said Bill Hamilton, merchandising vice president for electrical and smart home at The Home Depot. "Technologies that make our homes more intelligent and environmentally friendly will play a larger role in the life of every consumer in the coming years. As a test bed to develop and experiment with new product concepts, The Home Depot Smart Home will be at the forefront of the shift in how we live our everyday lives."