Highlighting the Sustainable, Renewable and Green Building Technologies of Passive (and Active!) Solar Design
Built with salvaged or repurposed materials wherever possible, Pesto’s house has a redwood frame for weather resistance. The sliding roof lets the sun in and keeps the weather out and the wind-scoop design keeps the house ventilated.
Tucked away where the canyon country meets the mountains, is a beautiful passive solar home built with two Trombe Walls. People who live in passive solar homes tend to exude a certain passion and...
Could the Pottery Water Wall be the answer to energy efficient building within arid, desert environments? A recent passive solar submission came from an architect/designer based in Dubai, UAE.
An older adobe home was transformed to become an efficient, modern house with a south facing sun room and a south facing two-story Trombe wall.
The highlights of the building are the passive solar heating and cooling, a Trombe wall, an active solar photovoltaic array, natural ventilation with clerestory windows and innovative cooling towers.
By NORBERT M. LECHNER As we discussed in the November/ December issue, low-hanging solar-responsive design strategies reduce a building’s energy consumption and typically cost less than the high-hanging solar-collecting technologies — or nothing at...
The dog days of summer are upon us.
It’s hot.
Yet well-built passive solar houses are cool.
The summer solstice is significant to passive solar building because they are built to take advantage of the sun’s predictable path through the sky.
This helps them to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Spanning over two years of work, architecture and engineering schools pooled their best and brightest to build efficient solar houses in the Solar Decathlon.
Today is December 21st, the day of the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight as the sun ‘travels’ its lowest and shortest arc through the sky*.
