Senior Design projects rarely get to build something big, but four students combined their skills for a cross-discipline result: an eco-forward tiny house right on campus.

Engineers are taught to take on problems and find solutions. Some of them create massive buildings, bridges, and space exploration vehicles. For one College of Engineering senior design team, their idea was different: think small.

Working with architecture students, College of Engineering faculty, and staff at the Office of Sustainability, seniors Blake Larson, Alexander Burchman, Roy Andresen, and Taha Mohamed spent the past semester collaborating on the design of a tiny house. Targeted for a community garden near the campus, the house will feature energy sufficiency from solar panels and a storage battery, a composting bathroom, all in less than 150 square feet.

This all began two winters ago, when the Office of Sustainability created a one-day design competition, or Charrette - as it is known in architecture circles - asking teams to create plans for a tiny, fully sustainable house. The winning project came from a collaboration of students from architecture, engineering, physics and geography and urban studies majors. Larson works at the Office of Sustainability where he coordinates Bike Temple. With his senior design seminar, he saw a chance to meld that mission with his education. "It's a small-scale version of some of the real-world work we might expect. There's also a result. The end is very tangible."Andresen sees this project as a step towards the future. "A tiny home represents a gradual, societal push towards behaving more responsibly, in terms of how we use energy and how we consume our resources. What really attracted me is that it's off-grid with a solar power and battery bank. It represents a different way of people living within their means and being responsible."

The house has been designed with efficiency and minimal environmental impact as paramount. It is not a legal residence, it has no bed and no one will reside there. At 135 square feet, the house will run on solar panels with no greenhouse gas emissions. Its existence off the grid forces the team to focus on energy conservation. The ample insulation limits energy usage to keep the house comfortable in the climate swings of the Northeast's calendar year. A thermal mass in a "heat closet" retains energy gathered from the sun eliminating the need for traditional HVAC equipment.

As a greenhouse, planting efforts will go on year-round and run on gravity fed storm water to avoid using a water pump or electricity. The toilet will also compost without using any water. The Office of Sustainability plans to use the house for further research and sustainable programming accessible to the campus, students and the community.

Dr. Robert J. Ryan, a professor of civil and mechanical engineering at the College of Engineering, served as a faculty advisor for the group. He was very impressed by the group's cohesive work and ability to solve problems on their own, which allowed for a faster rate of progress. "They fit a year's worth of work into the first semester." This project has so far seen weeks of work and labor, requiring more involvement than the average senior design project. Larson noted most difficulties came in the collaboration and communication. "We needed to work well with the architects so they understood what we were trying to get across."

The group noted Dr. Ryan's background in hydrology has helped with the design of the house's irrigation system and the usage of storm water. Also, his availability did a lot to give the students confidence. "He's helped me get a focus," said Larson "he's been a great touchstone."

Dr. Ryan also helped the group find Mohamed, a civil structural engineer, to fill out the group. Not only did Mohamed bring his geotechnical expertise to the project, his inclusion gave the team an appropriate upgrade to "TBAR", named for Taha, Blake, Alex, and Roy. Once the group formed, Mohamed saw things go smoothly. "Because we are respecting each other's work, we developed a very positive environment that has carried the project forward." Mohamed met with the architects to go over the initial plans, calculate the various loads needed, and cite weather factors to determine what specific guidelines the house would need to function properly.

The group's different specialties gives the tiny house some unique characteristics. Mohamed's structural expertise built a foundation without concrete and a frame that has large openings without stud walls. Larson designed a "thermal envelope" that works on maintaining the house's temperature through proper insulation, using solar energy instead of an electric pump. The collected thermal energy will be stored in water barrels underneath the greenhouse, which will allow heat to transfer into the building at night without ducts or a heat pump. Burchman handled the electrical design, selecting a location for optimal sunlight and determining the correct number of solar panels and batteries needed to run the house's electrical load, and drew up the appropriate permit documents. Andresen used SWMM software with the house's model and researched 10 years of rainfall data to put together an irrigation system for the greenhouse plants. Unfortunately, his gravity-fed system that eliminates a water pump and need for electricity wasn't able to be realized due to material acquisition issues. Putting problem solving to work, he was able to create a simpler system that fits the eco-friendly paradigm. He also designed the green roof with Professor Robert Shuman of the Tyler School of Art's Architecture department.

Each member has been involved with a specific stage of the build. Prof. Shuman and his class has been overseeing the construction with student volunteers from both colleges, with the engineering group's installation coming at the tail end. For his students, it's a rare opportunity for a hands-on challenge. "This is not unlike real life scenarios in a project of this nature where engineering constraints become real. It's a design project with an engineering paradigm wrapped around it."

This project offers a unique opportunity for cross-department work on a large-scale activity that goes beyond academic pursuits. "It's really exciting to be involved in a design/build project," said Larson. "The class doesn't lend itself to big projects, especially not collaborative ones that involve other parts of the university. As the representative of the College of Engineering, connecting with the architecture group, and sitting down with the client and asking, 'What do you want in the structure?' so we can turn into engineering design, that's pretty exciting."

Scheduled for completion by December, Dr. Katherine Elmhurst, project manager at the Office of Sustainability, sees the tiny house as a manifestation of a long-term goal that will continue to pay dividends to the University and North Philadelphia community for years to come. "Since its inception over two years ago, the goal of the tiny house project was to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Professional engineers are often tasked with working across disciplines, and the tiny house project has provided the opportunity to collaborate with other design students under typical real-world constraints, such as time and budget. Once completed, the net-zero building will provide programming space for the Temple Community Garden. The building size will enable visitors to visualize sustainable design and systems on a small scale."

— Marco Cerino