Among the winners were Santa Clara University, which won the overall competition along with eight other awards, and the event’s hosting campus CRC, which won the SMUD Excellence Award and for best sleeping area.
“Because it was designed to have two people live in it, we wanted to have the bathroom space be the most accommodating because that’s where you spend a lot of your time,” said Rustin Vogt, a professor of mechanical engineering and the Sac State team’s adviser, who added that the Sac State house was the only one to have a full-size bathtub. “I’m incredibly proud of the students. Myself and 20 students, we built this.”
Vogt said that the tiny house took about four months to build. In addition to the full-size bathroom, it includes a bay window, French doors, high windows for a passive cooling system, full-electric solar panels, a solar thermal hot water collector, efficient LED lighting, a recycled sink and accents that were made from recycled wood.
The Tiny Houses Competition was put on by SMUD and several other groups, including Intel, the U.S. Department of Energy, the American Society of Landscape Architects and Raley’s Supermarkets — which gave out free apples and water at the event.
“We put on events just like this in order to educate the youth and our leaders of tomorrow about new, sustainable technologies,” said Daniel Gehringer, a project manager with SMUD. “We’ve been planning this for over a year. This is the first Tiny House Competition in the nation, so it was a big undertaking for a public utility.”
According to the official rules, each team was given a stipend of between $3,000 and $8,000 and was able to raise additional funds through donations and other outlets up to $25,000.
Read more – http://statehornet.com/2016/10/sac-state-wins-best-bathroom-award-at-tiny-house-competition/
