Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME)

AUC's Team Oasis will be competing alongside several teams from world-renowned institutions in the world's most important green construction competition, internationally known as the Olympics of Sustainable Building. This year's competition offers participating universities and their partners an unprecedented opportunity for global exposure since it aligns with the Expo 2020 Dubai, held in November 2021 due to the COVID-19
pandemic.

The journey of AUC's Team Oasis started by imagining how our future homes, as modern, comfortable, socially conscious, environmentally friendly, and picturesque, can be reconciled with our local challenges of overpopulation, pollution, and loss of agricultural land. This contrast inspired the multidisciplinary team to participate in the Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) and offer a new vision for productive community-dwelling in Egypt's under-utilized deserts.

Oasis is inspired by the prominent Egyptian desert beetle in its ability to adapt to the harsh weather conditions of the African Sahara. In doing so, Oasis adopts a biomimetic approach; it learns from and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges.