The First Orange County Sustainability Decathlon Imagines The County’s Future As A Hub For Green Housing

All week, delivery trucks filled with pieces of imagineered buildings have been dropping off precious cargo at the OC Fair and Event Center in preparation for the Orange County Sustainability Decathlon.

It's a competition inspired by the Department of Energy’s own Solar Decathlon, which the agency has been hosting biennially since 2002. Much like their predecessor, the OCSD will be tasking teams of college-age students with not just designing, but building “sustainable homes.”

The inaugural event will be held in two waves — Oct. 5-8 and Oct. 12-15 — featuring the usual conference fare: speakers, art installations, workshops for children and parents alike, and refreshments. But it’s the main event — the Decathlon itself — that its organizers hope will be a big draw and keep people coming back for years to come.

How it started

Mike Moodian and Fred Smoller are Chapman University professors and co-founders of the OCSD. Smoller told LAist's daily news program "AirTalk," which airs on 89.3 FM, that if you want to make a difference, starting in Orange County is the perfect place.

“My mantra…if you want to change the world, you change the United States, you want to change the United States, you change California, and if you want to change California, you start in Southern California," Smoller said.

The pair didn’t necessarily set out to make Orange County the site of their competition. Moodian says he and Smoller “went up and down the state…we were kicked out of every single big city mayor’s office” looking for a legislative champion, but it was their own backyards where their idea eventually took root.

They said once Democratic State Sen. Dave Min, who represents cities like Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach, caught wind of the project, he was quick to join them on the journey and secured a $5-million budget appropriation to begin the project.

Meet the contestants

Applicants chosen from 14 schools across California and the country were given $100,000 in seed money, and a year-and-a-half to raise more and put together the engineering teams to fully realize their home builds. Now, they'll be competing to see which squad built the most sustainable home, and winners of the Decathlon will get the satisfaction of victory over some of their best and brightest peers.

The teams are comprised mostly of college students, some of them local like Cal Poly Pomona, UC Irvine, and CSU Long Beach, but the competition also includes students from as far east as Virginia and Tennessee — even one team from China — who have traveled to Costa Mesa to show off their engineering skills.

Industry professionals will judge the teams across six categories: sustainability, architecture, engineering, marketing, innovation, and market potential. Four other categories of energy efficiency, water use, health, and lighting will be graded on their performances. So, 10 total categories — hence, a decathlon.

Students at work constructing their "sustainable home" for the California State University, Long Beach team.

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Courtesy Mike Moodian

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One of the schools competing is a trade school from Salinas in Northern California made up of underprivileged youth between 16 and 24 years old. The Rancho Cielo Construction Academy shipped their home to the events center in three sections, and are now using the strength of the entire team to stitch it back together. Once the competition is over, the house will be shipped back to Salinas and installed as housing for a staff member on campus.

A 'Scudder Roofing' pickup truck is parked in front of Ranchio Cielo Construction Academy's submission into the Orange County Sustainability Decathlon. 'Scudder Roofing' is one of the companies that partnered with the RCCA in the build of their home.

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Courtesy Mike Moodian

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Other teams like the UC Santa Cruz EcoHus are presenting more unconventional projects. “UC Santa Cruz is designing what we could best describe as a house within a greenhouse that's completely off the grid,” Mike Moodian said.

The University of California Santa Cruz's EcoHus under reconstruction. OCSD co-founder Mike Moodian described it as a "house within a greenhouse."

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Courtesy Mike Moodian

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Minting the next generation of sustainable engineers

The competition also presents students with opportunities to show off their work both to the consuming public and industry stewards. A job fair will take place on Oct. 13 for students looking to break into the sustainable engineering business, and attendees to the free conference can tour the one-story, twelve hundred square feet designs on selected dates during the competition.

Moodian and Smoller say if all goes well, they want to host the event in Orange County again in 2025. Ultimately, they said, their goals sit at the cross-section of sustainable development in the face of a growing climate crisis and their passion for educating younger generations through the direct application of skills they’re paying so much to learn in college.

“Most teachers recognize that if you want students to really learn, you give them an outrageously difficult challenge…like build a home in two years and bring it to Orange County to show," Smoller said.

Listen to the conversation

With contributions from Matt Dangelantonio.