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  Student Team VIRTUe Unveils New City Design to Encourage Sustainable Behavior A sustainable life doesn’t have to be complicated, uncomfortable or expensive. This is the motto of TU/e student team VIRTUe, which is building a house to demonstrate this idea and to compete for the main prize at the Solar Decathlon Europe in Wuppertal. In October, the house will be completed and will first be displayed on TU/e campus, after which it will be transported to Wuppertal in June 2022. Last Friday, the team presented its final design. “The key element of the city is the people who live there. If they don’t live sustainably, it’s going to be difficult – even if all of the elements for a sustainable city are present,” says Willem Arts, spokesperson for the VIRTUe student team. The group of students from Eindhoven University of Technology therefore began with the following question: can our living environment make our behavior more sustainable, both inside and outside the home? Arts: “Social innovation – rather than just technical – is essential to this.” “If people can collectively make it the norm that they consume less energy, water and resources, only then can we make a real difference – and this starts with the thoughts of those who design buildings, homes and streets,” Arts explains. He continues: “Many people think that it’s complicated, expensive and not worth the effort to live sustainably. Ripple, as our new concept is called, features technologies and techniques that make it easier for people to take a step toward sustainability.”