A marketable wildfire-resilient and net-zero house design River Crossing: Learning from the 2023 Solar Decathlon

As the impacts of climate change worsen residential buildings across North America must adapt to withstand extreme weather. The proposed building design, River Crossing, placed second in the Attached Housing Division of the Solar Decathlon 2023 Design Challenge and represents a successful multi-disciplinary joint student team initiative from University of British Columbia Okanagan and Thompson Rivers University in Canada. The remote Village of Lytton in the Province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, was destroyed by a wildfire in June 2021, and residents faced challenges and delays in rebuilding. Therefore, the River Crossing design was created to offer them an opportunity to rebuild a resilient, efficient, and sustainable community. It demonstrates that it is feasible to build wildfire-resistant timber-framed houses in high-risk locations without structural concrete and using only market-ready materials. The building design optimizes passive solar gains, features a roof-mounted photovoltaic array to generate renewable energy, and meets stringent efficiency standards, including the BC Energy Step Code Step 5 and the requirements of the LEED v4.1 Platinum certification. The River Crossing design is a replicable model of wildfire-resilient design that provides a template for future housing developments across Canada and globally.