As a longtime advocate for sustainable building design, I have spent decades listening to people associate solar energy with ugly black boxes on the roof of the house that belonged to the neighborhood nutcase. I’m here to tell you those days are gone forever. I now find myself sharing the dais with the owners of those early solar systems. That nutcase is now a keynote speaker, and we’re finally beginning to appreciate the beauty of that vision.

Nowadays we’re bombarded with images that convey a different aesthetic of solar technology. Brilliant, elegant black solar panels gleaming in the sun against a perfect clear blue sky. Political candidates and even petroleum companies are parading their green initiatives with these beautiful images. Solar now means a sustainable future, clean energy, clean air, and a solution to global climate change. It might seem unusual, but in this case, the image matches the reality.

Historically, architects have translated new structural and functional technologies into elements of expression. We’ve done this with virtually every material we build with: stone, wood, concrete, steel, and composites. Our palate of materials has expanded throughout history for functional reasons, but as designers we use them to express shape, line, texture culture—and in the case of renewable technologies, powerful societal changes, values and aspirations. Now leaders in the architectural and construction communities are thirsting for new elements that express progressive aesthetics, elements that imbue meaning and value to the clean and sustainable energy movement.

We now have designers and architects using clean technology—solar energy, wind generator units, and other products and materials—as their preferred palate of expression. This is helping elevate early renewable energy enthusiasts to visionary status. And this contemporary connotation of clean and sustainable alternative energy is coming to your neighborhood and mine.

What needs to be understood, taught, and reinforced is that we … Next Page »

Comments (7) | Reprints | Share:          

Architect Bob Noble was the CEO of San Diego’s Tucker Sadler firm when Kyocera America asked if he would consider designing a “solar carport” for its San Diego headquarters, using photovoltaic solar panels made by Kyocera.

The request might have been a non-starter at any other venerable, 50-year-old firm. Solar carports, after all, have been done before. And Tucker Sadler is known for its work on major projects, such as the recent expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, the Christina Gateway master plan in Wilmington, DE, and the storefront, entry, and interiors for Barneys New York in New York City.

But Noble has long been a passionate advocate for sustainable design. When I first met him 15 years ago, he was the founding CEO of Gridcore International, a venture making fiberboard-like structural panels from shredded U.S. currency and recycled cardboard. So he jumped at Kyocera’s proposal.

“For me it was an exciting opportunity,” Noble says, rattling off his experience and credentials faster than I could write. I looked at him, exasperated, and he said, “Let’s just say I’m an eco-preneur.”

The result proved to be something of a revelation for Noble, who saw that parking lots represented an enormous opportunity for developing solar structures.

“Parking lots are big, hot, urban heat islands,” Noble says, working himself into another rapid-fire fusillade. “They’re bad for landscaping, bad for water drainage. They are the wasteland that you have to go through to get to a building.”

Instead, Noble argues that parking lots should be the giant canvas for integrating renewable energy technology with architecture and sustainable building design. He argues they are far better suited for solar arrays than the rooftops of commercial buildings, which are dominated by housings for mechanical equipment and worries about waterproof membranes. As a recently recruited San Diego Xconomist, Noble also will be making such argument on our forum.

Solar arrays like the “solar grove” that Noble created for Kyocera parking lot and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., generate … Next Page »

Comments (3) | Reprints | Share: