Swimming in Sustainability: The LISI House, Team Austria's 2013 entry, took home top honors before returning to Vienna, where the house was retrofitted as a floating model of sustainability.

Olympic Dreams for the Solar Decathlon: Zero energy West House, inspired by 2009 Team Ontario/BC, was successfully raised in just 3 months for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Up on the Roof: The Solar RoofPod gathers green energy from urban rooftops at the City College of New York Spitzer School of Architecture.

Since its beginnings in 2002, 224 collegiate teams from San Jose to Beijing – totaling more than 32,000 participants worldwide – have undertaken the most rigorous project of their academic careers: designing and building a solar-powered, energy efficient house. The flagship of these six award-winning, global competitions is the biennial U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, fetching entries that are both cutting edge and appealing, to meet the energy demands of the average American family – with enough surplus to power an electric vehicle. Yet as the next batch of houses are poised to compete next month in Solar Decathlon 2015, the question remains – what becomes of these trendsetters, these harbingers of a cleaner world, once the winners are announced? Let’s take a closer look at some of our most notable former entries.

To date, 130 houses have competed in the United States alone. These prototypes have taken up residence all over the world, in settings as diverse as floating on an alpine lake to bridling the desert sun. Many are open to thousands annually through public tours. Others have inspired new international Solar Decathlon competitions – now taking place in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin American and the Caribbean. And some have reduced our carbon footprint through repurposed and recycled materials. Indeed, these next-generation houses satisfy the Energy Department’s primary goal of educating America about clean energy by extending the reach of the Solar Decathlon. Check out the world map on our website to see where these houses landed after competing. And read on for updates since the last competition.

Our first stop on the tour takes us to Vienna, Austria, where the Solar Decathlon 2013 first-place winner, LISI house, floats peacefully on a tiny lake known as the Blue Lagoon. As a vanguard of solar efficiencies, the retrofitted structure still dazzles visitors from its unique perch. A bridge connects LISI safely to shore and has welcomed the public for tours since October 2014.

Last year, just in time for the Clinton Global Initiative University, the SHADE house was resituated on the campus of Arizona State University – a joint entry with The University of New Mexico in 2013. The SHADE team partnered with Keep Phoenix Beautiful and PHX Renews to provide a zero-energy house to welcome national leaders Bill and Hilary Clinton and Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Built to withstand the extremes of the desert and tap its ample sunshine, this house continues to impress visitors as an adaptable, resilient model of sustainability.

Donated to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Westcott House following Solar Decathlon 2013, Norwich University’s DeltaT90 house continues to educate visitors on sustainable design. The Delta T90 solar house today is integrated into the Westcott House regular tour program as a laboratory on environmental stewardship. Plans are also underway to develop a virtual tour of the house.

Another novel example – the City College of New York in 2011 developed a Solar RoofPod to tap the rich potential of urban roofscapes – from solar energy to ventilating breezes and nourishing rain. As a plus-net-energy roof pavilion, this prototype returned to the Spitzer School of Architecture, where it now serves as a living classroom, a lookout, and a hub for urban sustainability. Additionally, with regular lectures and learning opportunities, the pod is an intellectual arena to fuel dialogue on clean energy.

Eight additional standouts returned to campus as models of zero-energy living. Middlebury College in Vermont, for instance, allows pairs of students to live in their Solar Decathlon houses for a semester, learning about the house’s operation and hosting regular outreach events on energy efficiency. And Missouri University of Science & Technology devised a solar village on their campus, where five of the school’s six entries in the Solar Decathlon promote environmental awareness (the sixth one is now on its way to this year’s Solar Decathlon!). The houses themselves are the takeaway message of this competition: they show us that sustainable living is not out of reach.

Learn more about this October’s Solar Decathlon 2015.