Honestly - I would find an office and turn that into my growroom. Avoids having to build walls and all that jazz. From there, place your pandafilm, since your only doing 5 plants for harvest, 1 600 watt light should work, then you can just use like a 125 watt CFL to veg under.

As far as setup, if this is a grow your going to be checking out constantly, I'd go with RDWC, just because you'll get them bigger, faster - If your doing a remote grow where you won't be around that often, I'd use a soiless medium such as coco coir and perlite in 30 gallon containers. (the fat squatty ones)

If you want an automatic setup, as an engineer, that's pretty easy to accomplish. If your doing RDWC, This is also pretty easily setup. But as far as everything else, setting up in an office gives you a much better area to setup for cooling and fresh air intake. Also, what would be the source of your fresh air?

THere are as many questions as there are answers. So in your next response why don't you tell us a bit more about your situation and resources. and really, asking people the best way to grow, is the exact same as asking them what kind of car you should buy - Just because it works for someone else, doesn't mean its any good for your situation.