20100513
Open letter to Ed Mazria, Architecture 2030
Hi Ed,
With reference to you Architecture 2030 website technical information on solar design of homes: http://www.architecture2030.com/regional_solutions/passive.html
I am very anxious to reach you about a needed paradigm shift for homes and buildings. Sola Roof is a design concept to enable successful and universal capacity of buildings to fully capture and convert solar radiation that is incident on the building envelope. The Sola Roof innovation is achieving this by means of a completely transparent building envelope, which is also extremely light. Our low tech method of working with water within the deep cavity spaces of the walls and roof (between layers of transparent/translucent laminates and coated fabrics) is able to control the internal building environment temperature, humidity and quality of daylight. Water based soap solution is used as a thin trickle film over the inner skin for energy capture and to regulate temperature and humidity of the controlled environment. At the same time or independently, this soap liquid is expanded at will into a blanket of bubbles that fill the cavity space with light weight, high-expansion bubbles. This is not only an effective super insulator but is a dynamic process for distribution of low grade cooling and heating energy. Sola Roof achieves a completely switchable glazing with the active process delivered for effectively no cost.
The Sola Roof super-glazing is accessible to all through an Open Source community under a Creative Commons Public License. Users and supply chain are ethically bound by the terms of use set out by me as inventor, to make a contribution to our Pay It Forward humanitarian program for DIY Food to be established in communities to combat homelessness and hunger caused by poverty or disaster. Sola Roof envelopes can be high-tech architectural fabrics or low-cost film laminates and structures are equally adaptable to our technology.
We have established proof of concept and built large scale pilot projects that have functioned very successfully. To date such projects have been designed as greenhouse structures for year around low energy food and horticultural production. One reason for this focus is the role that plants and algae must play within the Sola Roof building to provide the effective Eco Dynamic mechanisms for our low-energy method of Controlled Environment. I understand that Sola Roof is very disruptive to the status quo of the building industry that has maintained a rather static view on "Solar Buildings" for a couple of decades. However, I would think that radical solutions might now be welcome in light of the critical role that buildings, as they are built today, play as a cause of Global Warming.
Sola Roof is equally accessible to craft builders as it is to the building profession. How much longer will the building sector stand back from the Sola Roof breakthrough. I am not holding my breath. I will work with the DIY'ers and get action at the grassroots. Even so, I am hopeful that you and some of the most creative within the building sector, especially architects who care about Global Warming, will try out Sola Roof in their projects and also will help to shine light on our innovation.
Therefore, I invite a discussion about the merits of massive/passive Vs light/bright. For that purpose I am posting this message here at my Blog and invite comment below.