Pre-modern History

The techniques of passive solar building design

Passive solar building design

In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, and distribute solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer...

 were practiced for thousands of years, by necessity, before the advent of mechanical heating and cooling. It has remained a traditional part of vernacular architecture

Vernacular architecture

Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 in many countries. There is evidence that ancient cultures considered factors such as solar orientation, thermal mass and ventilation in the construction of residential dwellings. Fully developed solar architecture and urban planning methods were first employed by the Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 and Chinese who oriented their buildings toward the south to provide light and warmth. Nearly two and a half millennia ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

 wrote: "Only primitives & barbarians lack knowledge of houses turned to face the Winter sun." Similarly, Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

 said: "Now, supposing a house to have a southern aspect, sunshine during winter will steal in under the verandah, but in summer, when the sun traverses a path right over our heads, the roof will afford an agreeable shade, will it not?" Roman bathhouses had large south facing windows. Solar design was largely abandoned in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 after the Fall of Rome but continued unabated in China where cosmological traditions associate the south with summer, warmth and health.

Modern history

Although earlier experimental solar houses were constructed using a mixture of active and passive solar techniques, some of the first European engineered passive solar houses of the modern era were built in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 after World War I

Aftermath of World War I

The fighting in World War I ended in western Europe when the Armistice took effect at 11:00 am GMT on November 11, 1918, and in eastern Europe by the early 1920s. During and in the aftermath of the war the political, cultural, and social order was drastically changed in Europe, Asia and Africa,...

, when the Allies occupied the Ruhr area

Occupation of the Ruhr

The Occupation of the Ruhr between 1923 and 1925, by troops from France and Belgium, was a response to the failure of the German Weimar Republic under Chancellor Cuno to pay reparations in the aftermath of World War I.-Background:...

, including most of Germany's coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 mines.

Architect George F. Keck was a pioneering designer of passive solar houses in the 1930s and 40s. He designed the all-glass "House of Tomorrow

House of Tomorrow

The House of Tomorrow at 241 West Lake Front Drive, Beverly Shores, Indiana, was originally part of Chicago's 1933-34 Century of Progress Exposition. Designed as the house of the future, this house included its own airplane hangar...

" for the 1933 Century of Progress

Century of Progress

A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation...

 Exposition in Chicago and noted that it was warm inside on sunny winter days prior to the installation of the furnace. Following this he gradually started incorporating more south-facing windows into his designs for other clients, and in 1940 designed a passive solar home for real estate developer Howard Sloan in Glenview, Illinois. The Sloan House was called a "solar house" by the Chicago Tribune, the first modern use of that term. Sloan then built a number of passive solar houses, and his publicity efforts contributed to a significant "solar house" movement in the 1940s.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

 used passive solar principles in some of his designs, most notably in the Jacobs House, built in 1944 in Wisconsin, which was also known as the "Solar Hemicycle" or "Solar Hemicyclo."

In the United States, interest in passive solar building design was significantly stimulated by the 1973 oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...

. Dozens of pattern books were published in this period, including the Passive Solar Energy Book by Edward Mazria

Edward Mazria

Edward Mazria is an architect, author and educator. After receiving his Bachelors of Architecture Degree from Pratt Institute in 1963 he spent two years as an architect in the Peace Corps in Arequipa, Perú...

. In 1977, the U.S. Department of Energy was created, and in 1978 Solar Energy Tax credits were provided. In 1979, President Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 installed solar panels on the roof of the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

.

Contemporary developments

Passive solar technologies were incrementally refined and greatly improved during the 20th century, boosted by the motivation of the, and aided by the development of 3D computer modelling

Computer simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...

 techniques.

At the start of the 21st century, passive solar building design has received greater interest. U.S. Solar Energy Tax Credits were reinstated in 2005, and the 2007 Energy Bill provided more funding for solar energy research and solar air conditioning

Solar air conditioning

Solar air conditioning refers to any air conditioning system that uses solar power.This can be done through passive solar, solar thermal energy conversion and photovoltaic conversion . The U.S...

.

The U.S. Department of Energy's 2007 "Thermal Performance of the Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings International Conference" presented a comprehensive workshop on "Three Decades of Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Lessons Learned"

Since 1978, roughly 300,000 U.S. buildings have demonstrated at least some passive solar design features (although over 25 million U.S. buildings have been constructed since then without using these techniques). For three decades - since the 1978 U.S. Solar Energy Tax Credits, 70% to 90% energy consumption reduction has demonstrated in experimental construction passive solar and near zero energy building

Zero energy building

A zero-energy building, also known as a zero net energy building, Net-Zero Energy Building , or Net Zero Building, is a popular term to describe a building with zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions annually. Zero energy buildings can be independent from the energy grid supply...

s."Side By Side Comparison"

In recent years, the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon

Solar Decathlon

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an international competition that challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house...

has demonstrated some advanced creative designs, using both passive and active solar systems, by architecture and engineering student teams from around the world. Solar Decathlon website