Students at the Virginia Tech Center for Design research introduced FutureHAUS, a "prototype for the house of the future" that is designed to be assembled in a factory as plug-and-play “cartridges” that are prefinished, preplumbed, and prewired.

The prototype home claims to use "digital technologies, cutting-edge products, and smart building design ... to make our homes more responsive to our future needs and way of living." The plug-and-play concept will reportedly make the electronics used in the home easier to integrate into the finished product.

Virginia Tech will compete in the Solar Decathlon Middle East as the only U.S.-based team in a competitive pool of 21 universities worldwide. The team won the Solar Decathlon Europe in 2010 with LumenHAUS.