THE SUNDWELLINGS PROJECT

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Already, however, the Sundwellings Project has proven its usefulness from a number of standpoints:

First, the Project has served to introduce local (Ghost Ranch-area) residents to the "hows" and "whys" of passive solar home construction. (Similarly, the venture has helped certain government administrators understand the nature of grassroots "folk construction". According to Peter van Dresser, the Four Corners Regional Commission representatives had trouble—at first—adjusting their ways of thinking to accommodate the concept of low-technology building construction.)

Second, the undertaking has resulted in the establishment of the world's first passive solar dwelling test facility. (In a year's time, it should be a matter of record whether the lean-to greenhouse, the Trombe wall, or the "direct gain" mode of construction is the most efficient way to passively heat an adobe building in northern New Mexico.)

Third, the Sundwellings Project has proven—other government projects notwithstanding—that it is possible to design and build low-cost solar-heated dwellings that blend with their natural surroundings. (As a side benefit, the scores of Ghost Ranch guests who'll be staying in the four solar-heated cottages over the coming months will—in all likelihood—take this message back to their home communities.)

For once, then, it looks as though the public has gotten a fair return on its solar energy investment. From its conception to its final implementation, this is one federally funded project that's truly been "of the people, by the people, and for the people"!

Jim DeKorne—author of the above article—says that Peter van Dresser (head of the original Sundwellings design team and longtime solar energy experimenter) has recently finished a book—entitled Homegrown Sundwellings—illustrating the principles of passive solar home design. According to Jim, the manual comes complete with a variety of floor plans, "each of which has been deliberately blueprinted for the construction of one room at a time". To get your copy of Homegrown Sundwellings, send $6.50 (plus 50¢ for postage and handling) to the Lightning Tree Press, P.O. Box 1837, Santa Fe, N.M. 87501 . . . or ask for the volume of your favorite bookstore.—THE EDITORS.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print