Soft House

When it's hot outside people often pull the curtains in front of the windows to shed their living spaces from the rising temperatures. Obvious. But the energy that would have entered your home now goes to waste. A pity.

Someone at KVA, a Boston located architecture bureau, must have noticed this. Before coming up with the Soft House. An intelligent product which could be classified as a multi-purpose-curtain. It's basically a curtain with some incredibly smart nanotechnology in it.

The curtain manages to convert the light energy that falls on it directly into electric energy. Just like a solar panel. If it catches sunlight all day the curtain can generate up to 16 kWh, and that's half of the average daily US household usage.
But it gets better. When you need some light the Soft House can be hung to the roof. Then it transforms into a "suspended soft luminous chandelier".

While I'm amazed with this innovation the possibilities pop up in my head. Umbrellas, clothing and (maybe a tad silly) sunglasses. Anyway, KVA is looking for a few development partners, so there is hope that this product might make it from prototype to the market.

-jdh