ANovember/December 2004 23

Leading By Design

Architecture is in the midst of a renaissance. Never before have

designers been so driven to consider the long-term effects of their build-

ing resources and practices. Never before have so many consumers

demanded buildings designed to minimize environmental consequences.

And never before have so many building standards, materials and tech-

niques existed to support this burgeoning demand.

At the forefront of the movement are sustainable architects. It’s

been no overnight success, though. Their decades of work in site-

responsive, energy-efficient design have laid the groundwork for

today’s green building movement. So what has driven these pioneers

through years in which architecture has alternated between trends for

environmentally responsive designs and those for commoditized,

energy-hogging abstractions?

SOLAR TODAY asked five of these visionary designers to discuss just

that, as well as their thoughts on where sustainable design is headed.

A desire to create buildings that are integrated with the natural world

is the driving force for partners Polly Cooper and Ken Haggard. For architects like Edward Mazria, a major driver is concern about the potential consequences of our fossil fuel-dependent lifestyle. For

John S. Reynolds, it’s an appreciation for the sun’s ever-changingeffects in light and shade, and the benefits of connecting a building’s

inhabitants with these natural effects.

Mike Nicklas may capture this motivation best, however. To thosewho ask how his firm, Innovative Design, has integrated solar energy sys-

tems into some 4,800 buildings, he responds, “It was my priority.”

Architecture’s innovators describe the challengesand rewards of sustainable building.

Architecture’s Innovators

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www.solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY 24

By Polly Cooper and Ken Haggard

■For some, it comes as a surprise to learn that partnershaving such passion for and influence on sustainabledesign began with quite different aspirations. Ken’s

first degree is in chemical engineering, while Polly began inmusic history and education. Ken’s father, who spent his retire-ment ecologically rebuilding aburned-out peanut farm in SouthTexas, strongly influenced Ken.Polly was influenced by her frugalparents, whose memories of theDepression instilled in her an appre-ciation for conservation. She alsoappreciated the power of fans toprovide comfort during Arkansas’long, humid summers.

In any case, our search for amore integrated approach to theworld led us both to architecture.

Shaped by the TimesThe architecture of the early

’60s, dominated by a mechanisticapproach to building and other disconnects from the natural environment, bothered us. Polly’s years at the University of California at Berkeley encour-aged a tendency to question things. Despite much hero worshipof the Modernists, nothing was sacred, including the dominantindustrial architecture. Chris Alexander, Sim Van der Ryn and athoughtful environmental control systems instructor helpedher develop more appropriate criteria for design.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine how important these develop-ments were. The 1972 Club of Rome Report on the finitenature of our resources was out, and the buildings around us clearly reflected our wasteful lifestyles. In addition, landscapearchitectural studies and Ken’s experience with environmen-tal planning helped to broaden our perspectives on what couldand should be done.

Now Shaping DesignIn 1975, we met as professors at Cal Poly State University,

beginning a long partnership. We spent many years at Cal Polybeing a minority voice for a more sustainable approach to archi-tectural education. In 1976, we established our architecturalpractice, specializing in site-responsive design.

The challenge of natural conditioning of buildings—takingadvantage of on-site thermalsources and sinks and on-siteenergies—has always been fundamental to our work. Inrecent years, this emphasis hasbroadened to include a widerange of sustainable design. Wehave found that by combiningour different perspectives, weachieve more comprehensive,integrated decisions.

Today our firm, San Luis Sus-tainability Group, consists ofseven people. Among them isScott Clark, one of our excellent

ex-students, who does design and production interface. For ther-mal questions regarding passive

solar implications and modeling, we consult with our long-timeco-collaborator Phil Niles.

Over the years, our sustainable design projects have becomeknown for several hallmarks: integration; miniaturization indesign, to increase efficiency; consideration of externalities; andnatural conditioning. Nearly 30 years since partnering, our goalremains unchanged: to help architecture become more connect-ed to our organic planetary realities. ●

Polly Cooper and Ken Haggard are principal architects at San Luis Sustainability Group Architects, a Santa Margarita, Calif., firm specializing in sustainable planning and design. They are recipients of the American Solar Energy Society 1996 Passive PioneerAward. Contact them at 805.438.4452 or slosg@slonet.org.

Drawing on diverse strengths, this pair pursuesan integrated approach to the world.

ASustainingPartnership

Ken Haggard and Polly Cooper

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This solar house in Atascadero, Calif., wasbuilt in 1972 as a prototype for the roofpond system of heating and cooling invent-ed by Harold Hay.

From 1976-1990, the firm designed 160 solarbuildings, mostly residences.

Noland House was California’s first permittedstraw-bale building.

The Tierra Nueva CoHousing project provedthat a housing complex could benefit fromsolar design.

The Trout Farm, the firm’s office, is an off-grid, straw-bale passive solar complex.

Polly Cooper and Ken Haggard’s firm, San LuisSustainability Group Architects (SLOSG), beganas a solar architecture firm and has evolved frompassive solar prototypes to sustainable planningand design. During its 30-year history, naturalconditioning via passive solar heating, passivecooling, natural lighting and natural ventilationhas been a fundamental concern.1972-1975: Prototype Roof Pond HouseThis solar house was built in 1972 as a proto-type for the roof pond system of heating andcooling invented by Harold Hay. Several aspectsdistinguish the project:• First documented 100 percent heated and

cooled passive solar building.• Only instrumented solar house in operation

during the 1973 energy crisis.• First comprehensive interdisciplinary evalua-

tion of a passive solar building.• First application of computer-aided simulation

modeling of passive solar building perform-ance, done by Phil Niles.

1976: Energy-Efficient Office BuildingSLOSG’s design of an energy-efficient stateoffice high-rise, with Christie Coffin, Phil Niles, Jake Feldman and Jens Pohl, was anAward of Merit winner in the California Energy-Efficient Office Building Competition. In addi-tion to illustrating the application of the roofpond system to larger buildings, the designaddressed urbanism and human-scale issuesnow referred to as “The New Urbanism.” 1978-1980: Passive Solar Handbook for CaliforniaThis handbook by Ken Haggard and Phil Niles,sponsored and published by the California Energy Commission, was designed to make iteasier for architects in the state to design passivesolar buildings. As part of this handbook, Nilesdesigned the Cal Pas prediction model. Thismodel became the basis of the performancestandards in the then-new California Title 24energy code.1976-1990: Passive Solar ResidencesPartially due to cuts in federal research funds andtax breaks, the 1980s saw solar architectureincreasingly viewed as redundant and unfashion-able. SLOSG survived by remaining small, withlow overhead. During this period, the firmdesigned 160 solar buildings, mostly residences.

1991-1994: Green Materialsand Social AspectsIn the early ’90s, SLOSG expanded its designconsiderations to include green materials andthe social aspects of building.Noland House, Anchor Ranch, Lone Pine, Calif. This project, in collaboration with eco-pioneerPliny Fisk, combined passive heating and cooling with broad resource, health and metabolism issues for a move toward sustain-ability. The first permitted straw bale building inCalifornia, it featured composting toilets andprocessed wastewater with an interior microbialbed filter/marsh system. Common House, Tierra Nueva CoHousing,Oceano, Calif.This project, 27 units plus the Common House,illustrated that passive solar principles could beapplied to a dense, socially cohesive situation.1994: AIA and IUE Sustainable Communities CompetitionThis entry, a collaboration between SLOSG andfaculty from Cal Poly State University, was one of the first-place winners in this internationalcompetition. It proposed processes for Los Osos,a community of 15,000, to evolve into a sustain-able community:• Regeneration of the watershed of Los Osos Valley.• A structure for developing a sustainable economy.• Diversity in transportation, housing types andcommunity infrastructure.• A community center consisting of civic facili-ties combined with a resource-recovery facilityand open space.1991-2000: Firm ExpansionSLOSG operates an off-grid, straw bale passivesolar complex near Santa Margarita, Calif. Dur-ing this period, the firm expanded into campusplanning, education buildings for nonprofitgroups, landscape regeneration and the politicsof sustainability on the Central California coast.2000 to Present: Passive Solar Public BuildingsGreen design comes of age as its critical impor-tance becomes increasingly obvious. SLOSG’s sam-ple projects include the San Luis Obispo BotanicalGarden Education Center, Congregation BethDavid Synagogue and the Mountainbrook Com-munity Church—all registered with the U.S. GreenBuilding Council for LEED certification. ●

30 Years of Sustainable Design

Innovators

By Edward Mazria

■It’s time politicians and energy insiders leveled withAmericans about U.S. energy policy. If we continuewith our current policy of oil, natural gas and coal con-

sumption, we will be keeping our troops in the Middle East fora long, long time and pushing the world toward a full-blown cli-mate catastrophe.

More than any factor, it’s concern about these possible effectsof our fossil fuel-dependent country that now shapes my workin architecture.

Why? Because U.S. oil and gas fields peaked in the ’70s andare in decline, and global oil reserves are now peaking with nat-ural gas not far behind. We cannot expect to get more oil or gasfrom our neighbors, Mexico and Canada, because their fieldshave “plateaued.” Most of the remaining reserves are found inand around the Middle East. With U.S. and global energydemand increasing, not only will we be competing with otherenergy-starved nations for these remaining reserves, but ourdomestic coal use and greenhouse gas emissions will increase.The scientific consensus is that human activity, mainly burningfossil fuels, is rapidly changing our global climate with poten-tially catastrophic consequences.

Not to worry, we are told; if we cannot get our hands on Mid-dle East oil and gas, we have Alaskan oil and natural gas, hun-dreds of years of recoverable coal (250 years by governmentestimates) and clean coal technology, plenty to meet our needsfor the foreseeable future.

What we are not told:• Oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is only little morethan one year’s worth of current U.S. annual oil consumption.• Alaska’s North Slope natural gas is estimated at slightly morethan a year’s supply.• If energy demand cannot be met by imported natural gas or

www.solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY 26

Architecture’s

Designing a

BetterFuture

2002: Mazria/Kepler Residence, Santa Fe, N.M., Edward Mazria, architect. The residence opens to the south for spectacular views andwinter solar gain. Passive heating and night-vent cooling provide 80 percent of the residence’s heating and 100 percent of its coolingrequirements.

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For this architect, sustainable building is critical

to averting a potential climate disaster.

oil, then domestic coal use will increase dramatically. With a mod-est 2 percent to 3 percent rise in use each year, our recoverable coalreserves may last 72 years. Clean coal technology is decades awayand costly. • The United States is projected to add 1,300 to 1,900 powerplants over the next 20 years. According to U.S. energy policy, “coalis expected to remain the dominant fuel in meeting increasing U.S.electricity demand through 2020.” • The United States is projected to add 22 million fossil-fuelburning mini-power plants in buildings over the next 20 years. Thenew buildings we construct each year not only consume electricityproduced at a central power plant, but also directly burn oil, natu-ral gas and/or propane in boilers, furnaces and hot water heaters.

1995 to 2004 mark the busiest, most intensenine-year storm period on record in the Unit-ed States, with 2004 shaping up to be theworst. Insurer Swiss Re estimates that climate-related claims could reach $40 billion in 10years, and may bankrupt the global economyby 2065. By comparison, claims averaged $12billion in the 1990s.• Maple forests in the Northeast will disap-pear and forest fires in the Western UnitedStates will double. The U.S. Office of Scienceand Technology Policy estimates that NewEngland’s sugar maple will recede from allU.S. regions but the northern tip of Maine. TheU.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Servicewarns that the area burned by wildfires in 11Western states will double if summer climatewarms by a degree and a half.• Abrupt climate change is possible. Evidencedemonstrates that Earth’s climate repeatedlyhas shifted dramatically and in spans as shortas a decade. These shifts are linked to changesthat make the North Atlantic waters less salty.Studies by the Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution indicate that over the past fourdecades, the North Atlantic has become dramat-ically less salty. The paradox is that if ocean cir-

culation patterns are changed or suspended, a Little Ice Age in theNorthern Hemisphere is possible.

Clearly, to end our dependence on Middle East resources andbegin cleaning the atmosphere of excess greenhouse gases, wemust quickly reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. A giant stepin this direction is to revolutionize architecture by requiring all newstructures to be carbon-neutral by 2025, meaning they do notconsume fossil fuel-generated energy to operate.

To reach this goal, mandatory requirements should be

In fact, 58 percent of the energy consumed ina building is burned at the site. • The building sector is poised to lead theworld’s rush to climate change. Transporta-tion’s greenhouse gas emissions will stabilizein the near future due to the economics andscarcity of oil. Industrial emissions are notincreasing much annually. That leaves build-ings, and once built, buildings have a lifetimeand energy consumption pattern that lasts for50 to 100 years.

That leads to my second point: We are head-ing toward a climate catastrophe. Atmospher-ic greenhouse gas concentrations are at levelsunseen in at least 450,000 years. Scientistsworldwide agree that we must soon reducegreenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent inorder to avert large-scale dislocations, destruc-tion and suffering. With world oil and gasreserves limited, coal is becoming the fossilfuel of choice. It’s cheap, dirty and abundant.

What we are also not told is that, if wecontinue burning fossil fuels, by 2050 we facedire consequences:• A quarter of all plant and animal specieson earth may be wiped out in the largestmass extinction since the dinosaurs, accord-ing to a recent study published in the science journal Nature.• A 2- to 3-foot rise in sea level is possible as polar ice melts andseawater expands. At this level, the Environmental ProtectionAgency estimates that 10,000 square miles of U.S. costal land willbe lost, an area equal to the states of Massachusetts and Delawarecombined. The Federal Emergency Management Agency esti-mates that 25 percent of all structures within 500 feet of a coast-line will be lost.• Weather events will become more frequent and extreme,causing loss of life and billions in property damage. The years

November/December 2004 27

Innovators

Continued on page 51

1999: Rio Grande Botanic Garden Conserva-tory, Albuquerque, N.M., Mazria OdemsDzurec, architects. The conservatory featuresa Sonoran desert and Mediterranean pavilion.Each pavilion maintains winter temperatures20 to 30 degrees above outdoor lows andprovides internal conditions that are suitablefor desert and Mediterranean plant growthwith little or no outside energy input.

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1983: La Vereda Compound, Santa Fe, N.M.,Mazria Odems Dzurec, architects, Commu-nico Inc., builders. The compound is a 35-unit infill housing development located inSanta Fe’s historic district. Buildings incorpo-rate greenhouse spaces and passive heatingand cooling strategies. Unit space-heatingrequirements were reduced by 75 percent.

Edward Mazria

To reduce our consumption

of fossil fuels, we must revolutionize

architecture by requiringall new structures to becarbon-neutral by 2025.

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2004: Edward Gonzales Elementary School,Albuquerque, N.M., Mazria Odems Dzurec,architects. The Albuquerque E-School isdesigned to serve as a model for future schoolfacilities in the district. All classrooms, the cafe-teria, gym, library and offices are completelyday-lit and passively heated. Cooling isachieved by shading, night-vent strategies andevaporative units, and natural ventilation.

www.solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY 28

By Mike Nicklas, FAIA

■For three decades, I’ve been trying to get this sustain-able design stuff right.

My firm, Innovative Design, has designed over 800buildings incorporating solar energy technology. Through aseries of speculative solar home design initiatives, we producedsolar designs that were built over 4,000 times throughout theSoutheast. Our early designs concentrated on passive, solarwater and space heating and energy-efficiency, but by the1980s, Innovative Design began to address more and more

sustainable strategies in its building designs.Though our focus has moved from residential to school

buildings, our current school designs tend to incorporate exten-sive daylighting, solar water heating, photovoltaics, rainwaterharvesting, constructed wetlands, recycling systems, xeriscapeplanting strategies, low-emitting finishes and furnishing, astrong focus on indoor air quality, and many other green strate-gies. In a first for us, we’re now designing a school that will incor-porate a Living Machine—a biological wastewater treatment

Architecture’s

Innovative Design’s school designs incorporate daylighting, solar water heating, photovoltaics, rainwater harvesting and other green strate-gies. East Clayton Elementary’s east-west orientation and energy management controls improve the building’s efficiency.

As Nicklas sees it, the only way to effect truly sustainable design

is to let values lead.Getting to Real Change

Today we find ourselves in a similar situation, again drivenmore by consumer demand than designer values. I frequentlywork with other A&E firms, mostly conducting daylightinganalysis; DOE II simulations; designs for rainwater catchment systems, constructed wetlands, PV and solar water-heating systems; and LEED compliance. With a wonderful few excep-

tions, my experience in working withthese firms is that architects are moreconcerned about getting the LEEDpoints than about the real environ-mental impact of their designs. Toomany times, they have asked me ifsome specification is enough to earnthe point—“I don’t need to do anymore, right?” Too many times theconcern is in earning the points mostcheaply, rather than doing what will have the most environmentalbenefit for the least cost.

The shame is that the firms with which we have worked, forthe most part, saw the various green strategies merely as ameans to earning LEED points, not as parts that could be woventogether into synergistic sustainable designs. This narrow per-ception greatly hurt their ability to most economically maximizeenvironmental benefit.

Breaking the PatternThe LEED initiative clearly

has many benefits. Until thevalues of designers change,however, lasting effects willbe hard to come by. Just as in the 1970s and early ’80s,we have a wonderful opportu-nity. Consumers are demand-ing greener and greener build-ings. But if the sustainabilityof our planet does not becomea “value” embraced by themajority of designers, we willfind ourselves once againcaught in a pattern. Whereonce architects aimed fordesigns that were “energy-effi-cient,” but not really, noweverything is “green.”

People have often askedme how my firm could possibly get solar into 4,800 buildingswhen, in their minds, for 25 years solar has cost too much. Theanswer is simple: It was my priority. ●

Mike Nicklas, FAIA, is principal of architectural firm InnovativeDesign, Raleigh, N.C., and past chair of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). Nicklas has held leadership roles in manyleading solar energy and sustainable building associations, and was the recipient of ASES’ highest honor, the 1996 Charles Greeley Abbot Award. Contact him at 919.832.6303 or nicklas@innovativedesign.net.

November/December 2004 29

system developed by Taos, N.M.-based Living Machines Inc.that mimics nature’s own water-cleaning system. In this Greens-boro, N.C., school, a rainwater catchment system will be usedfor toilet flushing. The waste will go from there to the LivingMachine and once treated, to the ball fields for irrigation. Fromthe fields, it flows into the aquifer.

We have designed 12 new sustain-able schools, each better than the last.And we’ve completed renovations oradditions on another 40 schools thathave also implemented green strategies.

But during these 30 years, I’ve alsoseen a pattern of on-again, off-againenthusiasm for sustainable design.Such fads have little long-term effect.Worse, they may distract designersfrom efforts to develop the cost-effec-tive techniques that will transformarchitecture as we know it.

Targeting Points, or Benefits? During the past three years, I’ve

worked with more than 30 other architectural firms in their ownefforts to address an increasing owner-driven emphasis on “green”design. You need only look at the effects of the U.S. Green Build-ing Council’s LEED (Leader-ship in Energy and Environ-mental Design) GreenBuilding Rating System todetect designers’ growinginterest in sustainable design.What’s driving this interest?

Years ago, the AmericanInstitute of Architects con-ducted a nationwide initia-tive to educate architectsabout how they could maketheir building designs moreenergy-efficient. At the time,the “Energy and Architec-ture” training program wasviewed as extremely success-ful, with over a quarter ofthe nation’s architecturalfirms participating. Then, astoday, the architects wereresponding to consumerdemand. Several years after the Energy and Architecture effortconcluded, however, the initiative was found to have had lit-tle impact on architectural design. Within a short period oftime, the architects no longer implemented the energy-savingstrategies that they had learned. I was part of that review com-mittee that determined that the reason for this lack of long-term effects was primarily that the nuts and bolts of energy-effi-ciency were taught, but the moral reasons to do so were not.The technical knowledge existed, but the architects simplydidn’t care enough, from an environmental standpoint, tomake energy-efficiency part of every one of their designs.

Innovators

Until the valuesof designerschange, lastingeffects will behard to come by.

East Clayton Elementary School, built in 1997, uses extensive daylighting. Innovative Design was architect of the 96,800-square-foot school in Clayton, N.C.

Mike Nicklas, FAIA

www.solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY 30

By John S. Reynolds, FAIA

■When I studied architecture in the 1950s, monumen-tal buildings were considered exemplary: perfect asconstructed, unchanging through a lifetime. As I

subsequently practiced and especially as I taught architecture,the dynamic influence of the sun overcame such monumental-ity. The daily and seasonal cycles that the sun gives to earth,repeated over the years, present a far more interesting designchallenge. People’s responses to these changes are even more challenging. Architects indeed give birth to their buildings,but the people occupying buildings then adjust them to suit the needs—of the day, of the season, of the era. A vital build-ing must be responsive to cycles of time.

The sun is one of the most important of the attributes of anysite, as it brings light all year, and the potential for on-site electricity production as well. (Indeed, I expect photovoltaicmaterials to replace the ubiquitous tar and gravel roof.) Thesun brings friendly warmth in the winter and threatening heatin summer, emphasizing the seasonal change that I personallyfind so invigorating. The sun encourages designers to considerother on-siter e s o u r c e s ,such as thewind, whichshares thisseasonal shiftfrom enemyto friend, butin reverse sea-sons to thesun. Rain, the timelessenemy of somany designers, can be captured toreduce a building’s drain on municipalwater systems. Even the nighttimeabsence of sun can be cherished for its darkness, the stars areminder of a universe of which we are but a small part.

The sun encourages a flexible building skin, but it imposes abuilding form constraint as well. Buildings elongated east-westare preferable, because their north- and south-facing windowsrespond easily to the sun’s seasonal change from enemy tofriend. In contrast, east- and west-facing windows endure the

daily glare of the low-altitude rising or setting sun, whether ornot the sun’s warmth is friend or enemy at that time.

Designing for Daily ChangeThe sun’s apparent path through the sky represents one of

our most enduring rituals, as momentarily imperceptible as itis inevitable. Sudden shifts of sky conditions add drama, withshadows of clouds moving across the landscape. This dailychange is one of the most important reasons to design build-ings for ample daylight. It keeps people in touch with the pro-gression from dawn to dusk, and aware of the exterior environ-ment upon whose health we all depend. The fact that daylightalso displaces electricity is beneficial, but secondary. Daylight-ing fosters environmentalism.

Daylighting yields a dynamic interior environment, espe-cially on days with alternating clouds and direct sun. Even inlocations far from a window view, skylights and clerestoriesallow the presence of daylight and its shifting intensity that keepsus oriented in time and place.

Transition spaces between inside and outside offer some of thedesigner’s richest opportunities. Many times the outdoor environ-ment offers temporary relief from the monotony of unchanging

Architecture’s

Thanks to the sun,

architecturebecomes a

performing art.

John S. Reynolds,FAIA

Building for AllTime

Left, shutters enliven a façade in Piazza Navona, Rome, and allowinhabitants to control the sun’s heat or light, as well as their pri-vacy. Center, the courtyard offers a piece of nature captured with-in the building site. Here, arcades open to a typical Spanish colo-nial-style courtyard in Colima, Mexico. Photo from Reynolds’ book,Courtyards: Aesthetic, Social, and Thermal Delight, 2002, John Wiley& Sons. Right, at the Cottage Restaurant, Cottage Grove, Ore., asouth-facing clerestory provides light and winter solar heat. 1981,Equinox Design Inc., architects.

Through sun-responsive design, this architect connects

occupants to the environment.

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indoor light, temperature andsound. At other times, it’s sim-ply more comfortable outdoors.Porches and entryways are com-mon transition examples.

In my experience, therichest transition spaces arethe arcades around enclosedcourtyards. The courtyardoffers a piece of nature captured within the buildingsite. As the sun shines intovarious arcades during theday, activities shift along withthe shadows. Semi-outdoorspaces encourage migration,adding interest, even ritual,to a daily routine.

As the sun provides day-light and warmth, with thepotential of glare, buildingoccupants respond in waysdifficult to predict. Movablesun controls are needed tomoderate daylight and pro-vide for direct sun, diffuse sunor shade. The sun encouragesdesigners to provide a switch-rich exterior, replete withopportunities for personalcontrol. Solar designers giveusers the opportunity for“thermal sailing.”

Aesthetically, a solar-responsive building presentsa four-dimensional façade.Projecting lightshelves andsunshading devices bringthe third dimension to oth-erwise flat facades, and theslow changes of their shad-ows over the façade or therapid changes made by usersadd the fourth dimension of time. Thanks to the sun, archi-tecture becomes a performing art.

Designing for Seasonal ChangeEvery solar-conscious designer knows the value of the over-

hang on a south façade: It can provide full shade all day long onthe summer solstice, and full sun on the winter solstice. But thefixed overhang must also function in the spring and fall. It pro-vides half sun, half shade on the equinoxes, like it or not. Inmany regions, the fall equinox is a very warm day when thedirect sun’s heat is unwelcome. The spring equinox in suchregions is a quite cold day, when sun is highly desirable.

Occupant-controlled sunshading is one good solution tothis equinox dilemma. Deciduous vegetation is another. Vines

can be given an open trellisshaped as desired for sun inspring, shade in fall. Vines areliving awnings, changing colorwith the seasons, translucentat the equinoxes, opaque atsummer solstice and a leaflesspattern of twigs and trunk atwinter solstice. It provides avibrant organic overlay to thefixed geometry of the build-ing façade.

Designing for the Long-Term

Difficult though it is, archi-tects must look ahead to a timewhen their buildings will bedemolished or radicallychanged. To avoid contribut-ing tons to landfills, buildingscan be designed to be recycledin whole components. Thiseffort is a challenge especiallyfor the thermally massivematerials that are so useful forsolar heating and night-venti-lation passive cooling. Oneresponse is to use water con-tainers for thermal mass.Another is to use precast ratherthan poured-in-place concrete.

Another challenge is to fore-see societal changes, anddesign accordingly. Considerthe multistory parking garage.If designed for parking forever,ramped floors save space. Butsuch sloping floors inhibit achange of function—office,housing or retail—as the autowanes. Better to place ramps atthe building center, where after

their removal the center may become a daylit atrium; and todesign with more than the minimum floor-to-floor height, toaccommodate daylight distribution and future mechanical andelectrical infrastructure.

The sun has given me a respect for growth and change, andbid me welcome the users of my buildings as caretakers and part-ners in the buildings’ successful function. ●

John Reynolds, FAIA, is professor of architecture emeritus at the University of Oregon and recipient of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) 1997 Passive Pioneer Award. He has served as vice chairof ASES and president of the Solar Energy Association of Oregon. From 1978-1990, he was a principal in Equinox Design Inc., inEugene, Ore. Contact Reynolds at jreyn@darkwing.uoregon.edu.

Innovators

A south-facing trellis with deciduous vine provides seasonal shading and color for the Emerald People’s Utility District offices, Eugene, Ore. 1988, Equinox Design Inc. (John Reynolds) and WE Group PC (Dick Williams), architects.

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