News
Building Dashboard® unveiled in first LEED® home in Southeast
February 2, 2007
Atlanta, GA - How would a building occupant respond if every kilowatt of electricity, gallon of water and BTU of heat energy consumed could be made accessible on a computer display in real time? How would building strategies, technologies and behaviors change if the monetary and environmental consequences of our resource consumption could be made clear and understandable to the average person?
Building Dashboard® makes the invisible flows of energy and water visible, teachable and engaging in EcoManor, the first LEED® certified residence in the Southeast. Located in Atlanta, EcoManor is also the first residence in the region to utilize both solar and geothermal energy to power its daily energy use.
Serving as the visual centerpiece of a variety of green features and technologies installed throughout the home, EcoManor's Building Dashboard® allows occupants to directly experience, learn from and respond to the positive environmental effects of EcoManor's green design decisions. The home will be used as an educational tool for builders, architects and designers, vendors, landscapers, homeowners and the public at large.
Integrating with Crestron's comprehensive home automation and security system, the web-accessible touch-screen interface continually displays "live" resource use on each floor of the home; calculates money earned from solar photovoltaic, water recycling and geothermal heating and cooling systems; translates resource use into everyday currencies, such as equivalent number of light bulbs, carbon dioxide and money; and displays current weather conditions and forecasts.
Lucid's interactive Building Dashboard® display system for EcoManor is intended to demonstrate the feasibility and profitability of building green. EcoManor features cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art exterior and interior products, including: the largest solar photovoltaic system on a residence in the Southeast; solar tube lighting; reclaimed wood and pressed hay cabinets; geothermal heat pumps; and grey water recycling tanks and rainwater cisterns.
EcoManor will be the first house ever to be certified by three of the country's leading green initiatives (U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Greater Atlanta HBA's EarthCraft House program and National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Wildlife Habitat program).
Lucid worked with Interior Media and Synpros to extensively monitor the home and integrate with the exisitng Crestron home automation and control system. The Building Dashboard® resides on the same touch-operated screen used to control nearly every aspect of the home, including interior and exterior lighting, indoor temperature, multimedia entertainment and security.
About Lucid
Founded in 2004, Lucid Design Group, Inc. ("Lucid") is a privately held cleantech software company and a pioneer in providing real-time information feedback to teach, inspire behavior change and save energy and water resources in buildings. Over the past seven years, Lucid's team has endeavored to make resource use visible, accessible and engaging so that building occupants have the data visualization and communication tools to manage and reduce their consumption.
Today, tens of thousands of people live and work in schools, companies, community and commercial buildings and homes enhanced by Lucid's web-based Building Dashboard® technology. Now in its fourth generation, the intuitive Building Dashboard® user interface allows occupants to connect personal electricity, water and natural gas consumption with the actions and events that take place within buildings.
