Excitement percolates in the design studio as architecture students and professor/architect Geoff Gjertson plan their Solar Decathlon entry.

The team is well into the process, having already submitted their design concept and design development drawings, and are now they are setting up shop in a warehouse space near campus where the home will be assembled.

But the design process does not stop once the building starts going together. In some ways, the most challenging design issues are worked out in the process of construction.

I've had clients who insisted that a good set of drawings is all you need to construct a building - "the contractor can take it from there."

Wrong.

Even Frank Lloyd Wright who had the brilliant capacity to envision space, form, and details was adamant that the details must be worked out as the building goes together. He would even go so far as to take his drafting board over to a building once the shell was erected and generate design details while sitting inside and observing the space as it was being constructed.

One year to go and counting. The set-up on the Capitol Mall in Washington, along with the other 19 college teams, will take place in late September, 2009.

Check back here every Wednesday for updates; the New American Village blog will be chronicling UL-Lafayette's efforts over the next 52 weeks culminating with a week-long series documenting the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC next fall.