Do “Solar Homes” Have To Look “Unusual”?
Design with climate lends itself to virtually all types of design and has been practiced for centuries in many cultures. For example the ancient Anazazi Indians in New Mexico built their homes facing south, and New England “Salt Boxes” were oriented south to help families stay warm in winter. It was the advent of inexpensive (seemingly unlimited) fossil fuel heating and refrigeration cooling that caused interest in “design with climate” to largely disappear. Many of the “solar homes” you have seen may appear “Unusual” because of the shape of the home and arrangement of windows used, but it doesn’t need to be that way. All types of design can benefit from design with climate without sacrificing appearance – it’s the designer that determines how the building will look. For example the “sun-tempered” design, whose energy performance is shown in figure 1, has it’s window area distributed similar to many average tract homes. With a tract home, a 60/20/10/10 percent breakdown of window is us
