Czech Off-Grid Houses is a project merging top architecture students, visionary professionals and highest ranking state officials under a shared mission focused on accelerating the transition to advanced sustainable technologies in our homes and buildings. Along with its main mission, it has created an annual statewide university competition for young architects (largest of it kind in the CE region). It literally plants seeds of future sustainable thoughts in the minds of new generations of architects. The best students get the chance to actually build prototypes of such buildings alongside a team of leading professionals, creating a unique know-how hub. Moreover, all the projects, all the research and all the data are open-source, free to download for everyone. The mission is to freely spread the knowledge to help others replicate what Czech Off-Grid Houses have done. Through this the project is empowering the whole segment of sustainable housing and helping it to grow.
The formula is very simple. In order to fulfill the project’s mission of accelerating sustainable movement, we need mainstream attention. This is exactly what is built – a mainstream platform that makes sustainability cool in the eyes of general public. Project Czech Off-Grid Houses resonates with general public, with universities, with the government and with businesses. This is exactly the connection our society needs for a better future. The more people the project targets the more it addresses its mission. In year only, Czech Off-Grid Houses have reached 1,5 million Czechs on social media and it has a very strong presence in mainstream media (approximately 350 articles in 2016). Project’s videos are gathering viral attention, reaching hundreds of thousands of views. It organizes free sustainability exhibitions and workshops all around the country with approximately 50.000 people attending cumulatively in 2016. Free blueprints get thousands of downloads. There is an obvious trend on the horizon.
Project Czech Off-Grid Houses has been selected for one of the Czech SDG Awards in 2017 and won SDG in category Private sector.