Politecnico inaugurates its Chinese Solar House

Since 2016 Politecnico di Torino has been involved in the international contest Solar Decathlon China 2018, in partnership with the South China University of Technology (SCUT) of Guangzhou with which it shares the research and technology transfer platform "South China - Torino Collaboration Lab" from 2015.

Solar Decathlon is one of the most important international architecture competitions, reserved for joint teams of teachers and students of the major architecture schools globally. It was set up in the United States of America. Nowadays, it has 5 parallel editions in Africa, China, Europe, Latin America / the Caribbean and the Middle East. It concerns the design and the construction of an innovative single-family residence with high energy performance, powered by solar energy. It will assessed with a series of performance tests which will determine - together with the evaluation of the architectural quality of the proposal - the position in the final ranking. Politecnico participates in the contest with a team composed of 9 teachers and 17 students of architecture and engineering, who work jointly with the SCUT team.

For the present edition the building will be built - together with the other 21 participating projects - in Dezhou (Shandong Province) during summer 2018, in an area dedicated to the final exhibition that will be transformed, at the end of the event, into a “model neighbourhood”.

The SCUT-PoliTO team - Adriano Aimar, Giuseppina Apollonio, Valentino Attanasio, Andrea Bonetto, Lorenzo Civalleri, Chiara Cordopatri, Ilaria Durando, Lucia Filippini, Irene Gramaglia, Ciro Lisciandrello, Alessio Messina, Marco Miliddi, Carlo Alberto Monteverde, Francesco Pino, Lorenzo Ranzani, Giacomo Sicardi, with the Professors Mauro Berta, Michele Bonino, Orio De Paoli, Enrico Fabrizio, Francesca Frassoldati, Marco Filippi, Matteo Robiglio, Valentina Serra, Edoardo Bruno - after completing the planning phase as part by the organization of the contest, has started the preliminary construction of the building in the last few days within the SCUT Campus in Guangzhou. Once completed, it will be subjected to a series of preventive tests by the team and then, in July 2018, will be dismantled and transported to Dezhou, where it will be reassembled in its final location.

On the 8th of April at SCUT campus, an opening ceremony took place to celebrate the conclusion of the design phase and the start of the construction phase, and to update the many companies that have been contributing to the initiative as sponsors. During the ceremony, the state of the art of the works was presented and the building construction site was inaugurated. During the ceremony Professors Sun Yimin of SCUT and Mauro Berta of Politecnico, respectively coordinators of the Chinese and Italian team, introduced the general aspects of the project and the framework of the initiatives carried out by the South China - Torino Collaboration Lab. The project was therefore briefly illustrated in a presentation by the Chinese and Italian students who are involved in the contest.

Afterwards, the guests were taken to the construction area, where - in the presence of the Italian Consulate delegates in Guangzhou and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China - the construction site was officially inaugurated.

The next steps include: the completion of the building in a provisional version; carrying out preliminary tests and carrying out any necessary corrective change; disassembly, transport and reassembly in the final location in Dezhou.