I started this blog in 2013; it was originally meant to discuss content from The Solar House, and material which was left out. Since then, I've allowed it to grow to include other architectural topics.
Link to list of All Blog Posts
My colleague Jon Gardzelewski & I were asked to write an introductory-level article on Passive Solar Heating for a magazine for rural homeowners. It's a short article with very basic information. In fact, most of it is basically identical to what you'd find in books and magazines of the 1970s. Anyway, I thought I'd share it:
"Keep on the Sunny Side" (pdf)
Update: The follow-on article is here: An Active Solar Primer
Anybody interested in this website will also be interested in John Perlin's new book Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy. The book is an impressive work and a rewarding read. Among the many interesting topics that Perlin surveys in the book, one section that caught my attention concerns the ancient Romans' use of solar heating in the monumental bath structures (p.27-33).
Perlin wrote: "the Romans usually glazed the whole south wall of their bathhouses."
Baths of Caracalla model (Rome, 212-216 CE), showing large, southwest-facing window glass.
From http://blog.tostevin.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/20130911-224017.jpg
Perlin also noted: "Seneca wrote that these giant windows trapped so much solar heat that by the late afternoon, bathers would 'broil' inside the baths." Here is where Seneca writes about the baths:
To show the Romans' facility for solar heating, Perlin points to a 1996 study, "Windows, baths, and solar energy in the Roman empire," by physicist James W. Ring (American Journal of Archaeology). I tracked down and read the original article.
Ring concluded: "the Romans deserve high praise for their use of solar energy." His numbers showed, however, that at noon on the winter solstice, a typical 'solar room' in a Roman bath would lose slightly more heat than it would gain---not very good. He made a low assumption of a 30˚F outdoor temperature and a high assumption of 100˚F inside. We may infer that at more moderate temps, or on days with stronger sun, the windows would likely offer enough solar gains to outweigh the losses.
Ring also wrote: "The sun alone on sunny days could provide most of the energy to maintain the 100˚F temperatures. Indeed, even with fires reduced on sunny days, there would probably be some thermal energy [from the sun] stored in the doors and walls that would maintain the temperature as the sun [went] down. On days where the sun [was] obscured by clouds, the hypocaust with reduced fire, or turned on only part of the time, could by itself easily maintain the temperature [100˚F inside] even with the temperature at 30˚F [outside]."
I find the Ring study to be well-done and informative. The paper's calculations are good and the assumptions are sound, although he did not take into account thermal mass lagtime effects apart from the comment above, and he did not discuss daily or yearly totals of gains & losses. He also did not discuss one of the biggest problems that modern solar architects discovered, as I emphasize in my book, the potential for summer overheating. (A curious point is that Ring gave a lot of attention to the question of whether solar heating would have worked in the baths with unglazed openings---obviously not!)
In the Roman baths, the solar heat assisted the hypocaust system of 'mechanical' heating. The technology of the hypocaust is fascinating. The baths included boiling rooms with tanks where hot and warm water was produced by burning wood. The heated rooms within the baths had raised floors and hollow walls, so that hot water and hot air were circulated in these cavities to create radiant heating in the rooms. This is conceptually the same as today's technology of radiant floor heating, which of course works well in combination with passive solar. (Interestingly, a 1956 scholar quoted in Ring's paper said of the Roman baths: "the principles of radiant heating ... made the open rooms possible and, to date, we have not matched them in a modern building.")
And if you're thinking 'they must have burned a LOT of wood', you're right. In fact, the Romans probably turned to solar heat out of economic necessity---they were running out of wood, and prices rose steeply. (Which of course brings to mind the famous quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.") A link below has more on the importance of wood, and the scarcity of it, in ancient Rome. And Perlin, in another book (A Forest Journey: Wood and Civilization), said that heating the caldarium of one bath consumed 114 tons of wood per year.
I like words, so all of this prompted me to look up the etymology of the word hypocaust, which is usually translated as "heat from below." The Ancient Greek hypo- means "under," although in medicine it connotes "deficient" and in chemistry it means low-in-oxygen. And caust- means "burnt," as in caustic.
Also to note: the large divided arch windows seen above are known as "Diocletian Windows". Ring noted that Romans made window frames from both wood and metal.
Finally, I'll mention that a quick look at Google Earth shows that the two most 'important' Roman baths, those of Caracalla and Diocletian, were not oriented orthogonally to the cardinal directions. Instead, they were built so that the major glass walls face southwest. (Which brings to mind the fact that Villa Rotonda and Chiswick house were later oriented diagonally, as was Villa Savoye.)
Related:
Roman Baths – Precursor for Modern Temperature Control at UrbanEmergence
Deforestation of Italy in Roman times discussed at Environmental History Resources
Diocletian Window at Wikipedia
As the sun sets on 2013, I thought it would be fun to review some of the solar house-related news that caught my eye this year. This a bit broader than solar house history, to include topics from the green building movement and the solar industry, because I figure anyone who visits will be interested.
It was a "record-shattering year" for the U.S. solar industry. A system was installed every 4 minutes, including a small array on the White House.
The Top 4 Trends in Residential Solar, according to GreenTech Media, were:
1. Third-party ownership
2. Reducing soft costs
3. Participation by Utilities
4. Vertical integration and consolidation
And at the utility-scale, the 280MW Solana solar farm in Arizona came online in October. It's the first U.S. solar plant with thermal energy storage. Also, solar beat coal in new electrical generation capacity during first nine months of 2013.
George Löf house, 1956-2013. Photo © Anthony Denzer.
Denver's George Löf house was one of the most important remaining monuments in solar house history, built in 1956 and continuously operating since. It included flat-plate collectors (air heaters) on the roof and gravel storage tubes. Sometime in early 2013 it was demolished. I discovered this and reported it in June. The news was reprinted by ASES at their website (link) and in Solar Today (link p.53), and then published again in modified form by GreenBuildingAdvisor.com (link).
Gender Issues: In both the architecture world and the solar industry, issues of gender came to the fore in 2013. In architecture, the Denise Scott Brown/Pritzker Prize controversy started a great deal of dialogue, but didn't bring Brown a prize. Then, long-since-deceased Julia Morgan did get a prize, causing more controversy (and I jumped into the discussion here).
In the solar industry, one blogger discussed Why solar needs more women. A first-ever survey confirmed "women are crucial to the solar market." And Women in Solar Energy wrote An Open Letter to industry groups asking them to "stop the booth babe culture" and "support a culture of professionalism" at conferences and expos.
Resilience:
The importance of resilience to architecture and civil engineering came into the mainstream of the discourse this past year. The Rocky Mountain Institute included resilience in their 5 ways buildings have reached a 'GREEN' tipping point. The Rockefeller Foundation published a nice summary of resilience in September. And in 7 Home Performance Trends to Watch in 2014, Mike Rogers defines resilience as "passive survivability." And resilience is a major point in the AIA's new report Sustainability Leadership Opportunity Scan mentioned below.
About 64,000 people visited the 2013 Solar Decathlon in Irvine, California. Team Austria won. All of the houses produced more energy than they consumed. Great work, students!
For a Rizzoli newsletter, I wrote: If you're curious about the future of solar architecture, head to the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California, this October and visit the 2013 Solar Decathlon. Twenty new experimental solar houses built by students will rapidly materialize for public tours and within weeks they will be demounted and sent home. It will be quite a spectacle. In The Solar House: Pioneering Sustainable Design, I discuss the Solar Decathlon's legacy in the context of the longer history of architectural experimentation with solar heating which dates back to the 1930s.... In the book I discuss many reasons to watch the event with a critical eye, but what will surely shine through will be the enthusiasm of the students and their fascinating solutions for an age-old theme: the solar house.
Team Austria house. Credit: Stefano Paltera/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
I also liked Guy Horton's take at ArchDaily: Why the Solar Decathlon Should Enter the Real World.
Every time I write about the Solar Decathlon, I must mention that there is even better work being done in local communities by student groups in programs such as: the University of Virginia's ecoMOD program, which won Architect Magazine’s 2013 Research and Development Award; the University of Kansas' Studio 804 (I am an alumni), which had one of the best new buildings of 2013; and Design Build Bluff, a consortium led by the University of Utah. These programs are all 'descendants' of the Rural Studio (founded by Samuel Mockbee).
First, I might modestly mention the one to the right. (The best third-party summary so far is by John Hill at Houzz.) Thanks to everyone who bought the book, reviewed it, or blogged about it. And please continue spreading the word!
I continue to enjoy John Perlin's Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy as I work my way through it. I wrote a quick reaction and offered some context for the German-modern section here, and hope to write further about the book soon. You'll find some articles by Perlin are here and here.
And The Greenest Home: Superinsulated and Passive House Design by Julie Torres Moskovitz is an excellent compendium of recent examples. It opened my eyes to plenty of firms I didn't know about before, and that caused me to reflect on the breadth of creativity (and competence) in the green building movement. It's also a beautifully-designed book.
The Bullitt Center by The Miller Hull Partnership
from http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/seattles_super_green_bullitt_center_opened_on_earth_day/
I'm especially impressed with the Bullitt Center (website), which opened in April. This building, it seems to me, could be a game-changer in terms of creating a new aesthetic which is expressive of the features that save and produce energy. It also signifies a new interest in timber construction which seems to have been a theme of 2013. A minor grievance from the link: it's disingenuous to say you're saving energy by using remote servers rather than local ones. That's like eating in restaurants and then bragging about saving money on groceries.
The AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) released its 2013 Top Ten. The San Francisco PUC building is pretty fantastic.
There's a Kickstarter campaign to digitize the Solar and Renewable Energy Archives of the American Solar Energy Society. This includes more than 50 years of Solar Conference proceedings and magazines and newsletters. I think it would open a lot of eyes to know how vigorous the solar house movement was in the mid-50s, as you could see by browsing The Sun at Work, for example.
The AIA released the Sustainability Leadership Opportunity Scan in October. It's serious and significant. It identifies "Four Priority Issues Where Architects Can Lead": energy; materials; design & health; and resilience.
The Urban Green Council's report, Seduced by the View, says "All-glass facades are a long-term problem." (My book gives some historical perspective on this issue.)
In Historic Preservation, the Preservation Green Lab issued a major new report, Learning from Los Angeles, which analyzed demolition and development trends.
Bateson Building, by Sim van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe (Sacramento, 1975-78)
from http://www.aiacc.org/2013/07/16/sacramentos-bateson-building-and-lincoln-plaza/
In July, at the AIA California Council, Etienne Louw wrote a terrific piece about "seminal works in our midst," Sacramento’s Bateson Building and Lincoln Plaza. These are pioneering green buildings of the 1970s. In my estimation, The Bateson Building, by Sim van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe, will surely earn a place in the history books of the future. (Tip o' the cap to Dell Upton for being ahead of the curve in this regard.) I was less familiar with Lincoln Plaza, but now am very happy to know more about it.
A major theme in the history and current practice of Green Building is the idea of 'integrated practice', or teamwork. Simply put, in order to make better buildings, architects and engineers need to collaborate differently. (Again, my book gives some historical perspective on this issue.)
The journal Building Research & Information published a special issue on "New Professionalism" (available free). In it, Bill Bordass & Adrian Leaman propose 10 Elements of a New Professionalism:
1. Be a steward of the community, its resources and the planet. Take a broad view.
2. Do the right thing, beyond your obligation to whoever pays your fee.
3. Develop trusting relationships, with open and honest collaboration.
4. Bridge between design, project implementation and use. Concentrate on the outcomes.
5. Do not walk away. Provide follow-through and aftercare.
6. Evaluate and reflect upon the performance in use of your work. Feed back the findings.
7. Learn from your actions and admit your mistakes. Share your understanding openly.
8. Bring together practice, industry, education, research and policy-making.
9. Challenge assumptions and standards. Be honest about what you do not know.
10. Understand contexts and constraints. Create lasting value. Keep options open for the future.
As usual, Martin Holladay wins the internet this year with his super-informative blog Musings of an Energy Nerd.
My favorite entries:
Passivhaus Buildings Don’t Heat Themselves
All About Thermal Mass
How Much Fresh Air Does Your Home Need?
And one of a historical nature: Can Solar Power Solve the Coal Problem?
Historical figures tweeting in first person.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) shared their in-house Environmental Analysis Tool™, free to all. It may be the best tool available for calculating embodied carbon.
BuildingGreen's Top-10 Products for 2013 included WUFI software, a tool which models moisture and heat flows in wall assemblies.
Ladybug, a plugin for Grasshopper, does environmental analysis. It's free.
NREL released a new version of PVWatts. It allows consumers to estimate the energy production and costs of PV systems. IMBY will be sunsetted.
NREL's JEDI, which stands for Jobs and Economic Development Impact and estimates the economic impacts of Renewable Energy projects, was discussed at SOLAR 2013.
...another example showing why history matters. LEED v.4 came on-line in 2013. The most common version, LEED-NC (for New Construction), doesn't include any new rewards for either passive or active solar as far as I can tell. But the previous version was already pretty effective at rewarding energy use reduction and green power. LEED-ND (for Neighborhood Development), however, includes a worthy new provision. A Solar Orientation credit can be earned for orienting buildings with their long axis east-west, or enabling that in the master plan. This is best, of course, for passive solar heating, shading, and daylighting control. As a historian I must note that America's first professional architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, suggested this very same practice---that city blocks should be shallow and wide, extended east-west, for houses to face south---in 1784!
Did you know Mussolini built 'Heliotherapy Colonies' for Italian children?
If I had been afforded more space in the book I would have included more discussion of the sun-responsive (or heliotherapeutic) architecture of the 1920s and 30s, especially in Europe. I regard heliotherapeutic architecture, often directly responsive to tuberculosis, as categorically distinct from the solar-heated architecture that is the focus of The Solar House, although certainly there are parallels and affinities. Here's another fascinating episode in the story of heliotherapeutic architecture.
In Italy, the colonia elioterapica (heliotherapy colony) gave fresh air and sunshine to children from industrial areas. This type of facility, essentially a summer day camp, is unique to Mussolini’s Italy and provided fascist education along with medical care. In general, the buildings would “act like great beach umbrellas, sheltering the children during sudden showers or at meals, and for controlling the hours of exposure to the sun.”
Colonia Elioterapica by BBPR (Legnano, Italy, 1937-39). From http://www.urbipedia.org/index.php?title=Archivo:BBPR.ColoniaHelioterapica.1.jpg
BBPR designed the finest colonia elioterapica, in Legnano (1937-39), which was widely published. Architect Lodovico Belgioioso of BBPR later described the program: “There was a lot of gymnastics, then after lunch they would have a rest. There was a wooden roof-terrace which we built for this purpose because it was more healthy, avoiding the damp from the ground. Then there was singing and medical check-ups, which were seen as very important, to ensure that there were no infectious diseases amongst the children.”
Colonia Elioterapica "Roberto Farinacci" by Carlo Gaudenzi (Cremona, Italy, 1936)
from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ennsor/3947451548
Several others (plural: colonie elioterapiche) were built, including one in Cremona pictured above. Another, by Enrico Del Debbio, was constructed at the Foro Mussolini in Rome in 1933-35. Others were built in Benevento, Boffalora-sull-Adda, Cantu, Palazzolo sull’Oglio, S. Lazzarro di Savena, Varese, and Vercelli.
Sources
Stefano de Martion and Alex Wall, eds., Cities of Childhood: Italian Colonie of the 1930s (1988).
Borden W. Painter, Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City (2005).
Dan Dubowitz, Patrick Duerden and Penny Lewis, Fascismo Abbandonato (2010). (link)
My first quick reaction on hearing that Julia Morgan (1872-1957) was awarded the AIA Gold Medal yesterday? Terrific! It will bring some well-deserved recognition to a very important and very accomplished architect who is generally forgotten.
In fact, I've 'forgotten' her myself, unfortunately, in my teaching. When I used to have an entire semester to cover the 20th century, she merited a full lecture. Currently (because of the constrained curriculum of an engineering program) I must cover the entire history of architecture in a semester and she's been crowded out, along with a multitude of other small tragedies.
Asilomar Conference Center, Julia Morgan, 1913
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsieh78/10701138794/
Having lived in Berkeley and Pasadena, I knew her work and her importance pretty well. Her Hearst Gymnasium and Hearst Mining Building were (and are) two of the jewels of the campus at Berkeley. I remember studying the Mining Building and finding it exceptionally well-composed as a teenager, long before my architectural education. I also remember hanging out at a Julia Morgan house on Derby Street in Berkeley, a student-rental at that time, and I recall that everyone knew the name 'Julia Morgan', recognized the house was beautiful, quirky, and important, and took care of it. I vaguely recall we had to remove our shoes.
I've been to Hearst Castle a few times and it is always simply unbelievable. Like visiting some remote European principality from another time. My old lecture was focused on that site, with a dash of the Asilomar building. In my research for that lecture, I really came to respect her as a working professional. In the profusion of activity at San Simeon, I think it might sometimes be overlooked what a difficult job Julia Morgan had. William Randolph Hearst constantly changed his mind and expanded the scope of the project. As construction proceeded, he shipped back pieces of buildings that she needed to incorporate into the design on-the-fly. She needed to manage all of this while commuting from San Francisco and working on dozens of other projects. Obviously she succeeded tremendously because San Simeon is marvelously resolved at every scale, and the demanding client hired her again and again.
I've never thought about it until now, but today I began wonder why I like Morgan's work so much, given that she practiced eclecticism, which usually displeases my own modernist sensibility. First thought: she had some strong affiliations with the Arts & Crafts movement, as shown by the Asilomar building and the Derby street house (and others, including maybe even the Refectory at Hearst Castle). Secondly, design quality transcends everything else, and her buildings have plenty of that.
When I noticed some hand-wringing online yesterday about the award, I immediately thought it was misplaced. Why politicize the issue? Let's assume it's an authentic decision and that Julia Morgan will have a well-deserved moment in the spotlight. Books will sell. People like me will find a place for her (again) in history courses.
On further reflection, though, I do understand the raising of a critical eyebrow. Gender biases favoring men, both in contemporary architecture and architectural history, are real and profound. Decisions that too-obviously seek to soothe over a deep historical wound can appear weak, arbitrary and gestural. Has Julia Morgan's memory become a sacrificial pawn in architecture's larger game of gender politics? It's a question worth discussing.
Also pertinent: "Unforgetting Women"
Solar House History
by Anthony Denzer
published April 2013
Rizzoli International Publications
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4005-2
