The goal of the Duke Smart Home Program is to offer a research and educational program that emphasizes energy efficient, sustainable and ‘smarter’ living. Smarter living is defined as using technology for automation in a way that encourages behavior we want and need to achieve our values of energy efficient, sustainable living. The program operates and manages The Home Depot Smart Home as an evolving resource purposefully used to inform our ideas about sustainable, energy efficient, smart living. In addition, the program provides a budget, oversight and mentoring guidance for the student-run Smart Home Club. The program is also involved in the community-focused Dumb Home Project with Builders of Hope.

The Home Depot Smart Home is a 6,000 square foot live-in research laboratory operated by Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. The Home Depot Smart Home, part of a Duke Smart Home Program, creates a dynamic “living laboratory” environment that contributes to the innovation and demonstration of future residential building technology. The central concept of this project is our belief that smart homes can improve that quality of life for people of all ages and incomes.

The Home Depot Smart Home provides students at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, Trinity School of Arts and Sciences and Nicholas School for the Environment and Earth Sciences with an opportunity for practical hands- on engineering outside of the classroom in a living and learning community. In addition, we are partnering with industry to strengthen the residential market for integrated technology, and helping homeowners make their own ideas for smart homes a reality.

The goals for the residents of The Home Depot Smart Home are to:

Commit to and explore an energy efficient lifestyle, and Compare, use and develop smart and sustainable technology.

School of Engineering. The Smart Home creates a dynamic “living laboratory” environment that contributes to the innovation and demonstration of future residential building technology. The central concept of this project is our belief that smart homes can improve that quality of life for people of all ages and incomes.

Designed by the studio of Frank Harmon, the Smart Home features a host of green features including photovoltaic panels, geothermal heat pumps, rainwater collection system, and a green roof, to name a few, with “smart” walls that allow the students who live there to access, adjust and monitor all electrical and mechanical systems. Other interactive features include movable skylights and windows, as well as removable sections of walls, floors and ceiling.

The green roof was plug planted with a variety of Sedums and other drought hardy plants. In 2008, Living Roofs, Inc. replanted the roof and added a drip irrigation system connected to the rainwater collection system. The roof is irrigated with rainwater.

Duke’s Smart Dorm was the first LEED Platinum building on Duke’s campus and the first live-in labortory in the world to receive the highest certification from the USGBC. Read about Duke’s green building initiatives: Duke Sustainability Program. See these other Duke University living roof profiles in The Greenroof & Greenwall Projects Database: Duke University Cancer Center; Duke University Medical Center and Duke University Marguerite Kent Repass Ocean Conservation Center (OCC).