Dive Brief:

• At Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, a team of students has devised a "skin" that would cover the top, front, and back of a Dutch row house, changing its configuration to insulate or encourage air circulation depending on the season.
• The system includes solar panels to generate the electricity it will take to change the skin's position to meet conditions, as well as power for the house.
• The students calculate that about 1.4 million Dutch homes could be outfitted with the system to reduce power demand, and they plan to build it on a model house at Solar Decathlon Europe this summer.

Dive Insight:

The skin buttons up the house in the winter, trapping heat inside by closing its glass panels on the front and back of the house. (The attached units have exposed side walls only at the end of rows.) As the weather warms, the panels open partially, then open completely in summer.