Not the AEL. This was RISD's solar dec house. Looks pretty good, huh?

We got another great tip off on the commencement of the Alternative Energy Lab downtown. The AEL is an exhibition space for the newest in green technology and good design, constructed (hopefully) down near the waterfront. It’s a really cool building: Chris Bull’s renewable energy technology class helped design and spec several of the systems in use to make the house suuuuuper efficient, utilizing high tech gizmos like a thousand pound phase-change air conditioning and heat sinking system. What is that, you say? Who knows! It’s a thousand pounds of molten salt which cool your house using little to no electricity. Remarkable!

What’s cooler is that they’re actually accepting student volunteers to help build this beast. If you’re interested in helping construct the actual lab or even if you’re just looking through and have a question, contact us through email (tips-at–empowerbrown.org) and we’ll send you where you need to go. According to us, anyway.