Green Daily

The house of the future can certainly have a lot of history. The students at Penn State proved it with the one they built with local materials and reclaimed slate from the state's Colonial roots. The exterior features their own highly coveted Pennsylvania blue stone as well as wood from fallen Elm, Oak and Cherry trees and steel as a nod to one of the state's major industries. A rain gutter doubles as a waterfall that replenishes the gardens below.

Inside, a wall of milk bottles dominates the living space in a good way, honoring dairy farmers back home and diffusing light throughout the room. The kitchen could have been plucked from the pages of a kitchen remodeling ad, complete with granite counter tops and traditionally designed cabinetry and fixtures; a convection oven doubles as a microwave.

In the bathroom, decorative tile covers radiant heating in the shower walls. And a movable wall on tracks between the bedroom and living space allows flexibility for entertaining more than a few house guests.

Gallery: 2007 Solar Decathlon

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Texas at Austin
University of Missouri-Rolla
Santa Clara University
University of Maryland
Georgia Institute of Technology
Penn State
M.I.T.
Ecole de Technologie Superiore, Universite de Montreal, McGill University
Universidad de Puerto Rico
University of Colorado at Boulder
Lawrence Technological University
New York Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon