Solar house research applied for “Extreme Makeover,” Blacksburg edition

Students and faculty members in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies applied research they perfected in the Solar Decathlon to a meditation building that will help Blacksburg resident Carol Crawford Smith in her battle against MS.

Crawford Smith received a new home, compliments of the popular ABC television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and Building Specialists of Roanoke, Va. The meditation building is connected to the house from the master bedroom by a short walkway. Bookend French doors lead to a space with a yoga platform surrounded by a cascading waterfall, plantings, and the Virginia Tech innovation — walls that transmit diffused light while delivering great insulation. There is no need for electric light in the meditation room from sunrise to sunset. Then banks of LED lights allow Smith to change the walls to any color she desires. The meditation building gives her a room of her own, a place where she can find peace, and a place to reflect, plan, and dream.

The college team, led by Joe Wheeler, architecture professor, and Robert Dunay, director of the industrial design program, also designed the home in collaboration with Building Specialists. The student design team worked with building construction professors Yvan Beliveau, Mike O’Brien, and Thomas Mills; Professor Brian Kleiner, director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health; and landscape architecture Professor Ben Johnson.

“The house design represents what Carol has always wanted, a cottage that is outstanding both practically and esthetically. But the meditation room goes beyond her dreams; in it we hope Carol will remember to keep dreaming big and remember that unexpected, amazing things always lie ahead,” Wheeler says.

“Carol has given a lot to the community so a sense of community is incorporated into the design of the house,” Dunay says. “While she and her sons will live together as a family in this house, they will also be like a village, with all members acting as individuals in their own right. The vertical light of the meditation space – unlike any light in the rest of the house – defines for Carol a room of her own. Thus she can have a sense of reflective privacy within the bustle of daily life. The main house offers an identity of traditional refuge while the meditation space offers the hope of innovation.”

Photos at the top of the page provided by Building Specialists