NYIT Interior Design Students to Showcase Solar Powered Furniture

NYIT Interior Design Students to Showcase Solar Powered Furniture
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) is one of six colleges from around the world invited to exhibit at the 18th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), from May 20 - 23, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

Each year, editors from world-leading design magazines, Abitare, Domus, Metropolis, Wallpaper, Frame, Interni and Intramuros, select what they feel are the most innovative student-designed projects to present at the ICFF.

NYIT's exhibit, Furniture for a Solar Home, will feature six original prototypes developed by over 45 undergraduate interior design students.

Working with Assistant Professors Martha Siegel and Robert Allen, the furniture was created for NYIT's entry into the 2005 Solar Decathlon, an international competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy that challenges students to design, build and operate the most energy-efficient solar-powered home.

The six high-tech furniture pieces challenge many assumptions of current sustainable design thinking by advancing a new model that suggests interior furnishings become principal participants in the overall energy and material strategy - both for solar and non-solar homes.

Students began by questioning the current satisfaction in the sustainable community with architect and author William McDonough's