"Generating Hope celebrates the University of Louisiana at Lafayette?s BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar Home, which won First Place in Market Viability and People?s Choice in the U.S. Department of Energy?s 2009 Solar Decathlon. The book frames the significance of the project and helps set a course for the future of sustainable design and affordable, energy-efficient, and hurricane-resistant housing in the Gulf Coast region and around the world. It tells stories of hope through personal interviews with the students, faculty, and community partners whose work on the home came to embody the heart, soul, ingenuity, way of life, and spirit of South Louisiana?s Cajun and Creole people. The BeauSoleil Home?s technical innovations, experiments, and professional collaborations are illustrated with over 180 photographs and drawings, and sidebars provide a Do-it-Yourself guide to implementing solar and sustainable practices in the reader?s home"--The publisher.