Students from Delft University have turned an ordinary 1960s terraced house into an energy-neutral home by giving it a ‘new skin’ involving solar panels, glass walls and smart technology.

The project shows how 1.4 million similar terraced homes in the Netherlands could be made energy self-sufficient and won top prize for sustainability at the 2014 Solar Decathlon event in France earlier this summer.

The home, a replica of the house lived in by one of the students as a child, has been rebuilt in Delft with all the high-tech modifications. The project is called Prêt-à-Loger – ready to be lived in – because the residents are able to remain living there while renovations are carried out.

Delft researchers will use the house as a test site for improving the indoor environment in homes and for the further development of consumer products, systems and fittings within buildings and solar cells.

The house is the first building in The Green Village, a Delft initiative to develop a living laboratory for sustainable innovations on the university campus.

The house was formally opened on Monday by housing minister Stef Blok.