--- title: Home url: 'https://sdme.nyuad.io/' markdown: 'https://sdme.nyuad.io/index.md' date: '2026-10-19' description: '.my-slider { max-width: 900px; margin: 2rem auto; } .my-slider img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .my-slider:fullscreen { width: 100vw !important; height: 100vh !important; background: black; display: flex; align-items: center; …' --- # Home - ![Slide 1](home/carousel/Dining_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 2](home/carousel/Energy_self-sufficient_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/House_Tesla_1903x976_fade.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Agricultural_Tourism_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/BackgroundIMG-min.png) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Dining_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Energy_self-sufficient_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Greenwall_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Greenwall_1903x976_fade.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/House_Tesla_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/House_Tesla_1903x976_fade.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Kitchen_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Local_Reclaimed_Materials_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Modular_Prefabrication_1904x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/NYUAD---SDME---Interior_Rendering_with_Background_x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Natural_Beauty_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Raised_Floor_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Relax_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/SDME---Engineering_Desing_Studio_x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/SDME---Inspiration_x976.JPG) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/SDME---Sketches_x976.JPG) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/SDME---Team_NYUAD_Photo_x976.JPG) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/SDME---Team_NYUAD_Photo_x976_faded.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Seamless_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Team_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Video_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Video_1903x976_2.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Warehouse_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Warehouse_1903x976_fade.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Wood_1903x976.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/Wood_1903x976_fade.jpg) - ![Slide 3](home/carousel/rsz_img_3229-min-resized.jpg) - [![Slide 3](home/carousel/sdme_youtube_video_link.png)](https://youtube.com) Students from [NYU Abu Dhabi](https://www.nyuad.io) designed and built an experimental dwelling for the [2018 Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Middle_East). Their home was also shown at the Solar Decathlon Middle East 2020 (delayed to 2021 due to COVID-19). Both events were hosted in collaboration with [Dubai Energy and Water Authority (DEWA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Electricity_and_Water_Authority) and took place at the [Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_bin_Rashid_Al_Maktoum_Solar_Park). ### Mission To design and build a radically-upgradeable home that serves as an iconic "Agricultural Tourism" destination in the UAE while adhering to the rules of SDME and while expanding and employing global best practices in sustainable design and development. ### Background The [US Department of Energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Energy) and the [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Laboratory_of_the_Rockies) started the [Solar Decathlon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon) competition in 2002, and hosted eight editions in the United States ([2002](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2002), [2005](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2005), [2007](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2007), [2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2009), [2011](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2011), [2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2013), [2015](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2015), [2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon#2017)). The Solar Decathlon organizers have also coordinated international editions in [China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_China) ([2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_China#Solar_Decathlon_China_2013), [2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_China#Solar_Decathlon_China_2018), 2022), [Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe) ([2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2010), [2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2012), [2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2014), [2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2019), [2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2021/2022), [2023](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Europe#Solar_Decathlon_Europe_2023)), and the Middle East ([2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Decathlon_Middle_East#Solar_Decathlon_Middle_East_2018) & 2021). In of March 2025, the Solar Decathlon competition was renamed to the "[BuildingsNEXT Student Design competition](https://www.energy.gov/cmei/buildings/buildingsnext/buildingsnext)". *Note: By the mid 2010s, the underlying technological challenges inherent in building sustainable, solar powered houses were well understood to be sufficiently "solved" to the extent that university students would not likely be positioned advantageously, relative to industry leaders, to demonstrate innovations beyond those that are well-known and available commercially. Unsurprisingly, the "need" for such competitions has, arguably, dropped precipitously; Team NYUAD advises anyone considering such competitions to deeply reconsider, unless you have ulterior motives as we did.* ### Team NYUAD Approach In 2016, when the Solar Decathlon Middle East competition was announced, a large group of students expressed interest in participating. As is common when considering designs for "sustainability", many of the early team members were drawn to influencer-driven concepts of tiny homes, container homes, and up-cycling. While these "green" approaches can work occasionally and are enjoyable personal initiatives, they served to steered the team's early thinking in directions that were already very well-known and were over-explored. As the team began to venture away from classic, stereotypical "sustainable" approaches, their membership shifted towards including individuals with passions to find creative ways to make the most of what they began to realize would eventually become an all-consuming, 2-year long, unpaid, uncredited super-project, beyond anything they ever would have imagined doing as undergraduates. Once triggered to begin more deeply exploring the unlikely opportunities that the competition unlocked, the team began to see chances to build an experimental platform that played with what future houses might look like. While they still needed to comply with the rules of SDME, the team identified degrees of freedom that would allow them to produce a house that *they knew needed to exist* rather that a house that merely complied with the competition guidelines. A big turning point in their thinking came when they realized that in order to make a house run off of solar energy in 2018, the answer was simply to build any standard structure and put solar panels on top. The technical challenges were long-ago solved. The SDME competition, at its core, seemed to almost reduce down to an advanced shopping and logistics exercise. Their focus, after that epiphany, and after deep research and many conversations, shifted to imagining making a future-proof house in which all materials and surfaces would be upgradeable without requiring massive re-construction or remodeling work. In parallel, they found an additional inspiring challenge of making the house an "Agricultural Tourism Destination" that demonstrated the high-tech indoor agricultural techniques being experimented with in the UAE. As the team began specifying details of the house, they further discovered that the majority of the design was likely to be composed of "the best material available to be specified in 2016/17" that had actually been on the market for 5+ years. When the house would eventually be constructed in late 2018, it would inadvertently be composed of ideas and materials that were nearly a decade out of date. This further motivated the guiding principle that "all surfaces and materials must be upgradeable" with the expectation that future, unforeseen advances should be easily incorporated into the home. --- ## Navigation - Next: [Competition](https://sdme.nyuad.io/competition.md) - Children: - [Carousel](https://sdme.nyuad.io/home/carousel.md)