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Environmentally Responsive Building DesignSolar Design Associates is an interdisciplinary group of dedicated professionals working to create a sustainable built environment. Since its founding in 1974, the firm has earned an international reputation for the pioneering integration of renewable energy systems and environmentally responsive building design.SDA offers services in project planning, building design, energy systems engineering and technology development to private, commercial, utility and research clients. At the time of the first oil embargo, Solar Design Associates' President Steven Strong was working as an engineering consultant on the Alaskan pipeline project. This combination of events convinced him there were easier and better ways to deliver comfort and convenience to the consumer than "going to the ends of the earth to extract the last drop of fossil fuel." He returned to Boston with a little bit of money and a great deal of conviction and founded Solar Design Associates to design energy-conscious buildings powered by renewable energy. In the early years, SDA designed many passive and passive/active hybrid solar buildings. Realizing that the thermal issues could be easily mastered, the firm created thermally self-sufficient buildings even in northern-most regions.
The Whitney residence in central Maine, an area with a severe winter climate of 9,000 heating degree days, is representative of these projects. Completed in 1976, the Whitney residence burns no fossil fuel and has no conventional heating system. A roof-integrated array of solar thermal collectors works together with generous passive solar gain, a super-insulated envelope, earth-sheltering and internal thermal mass to keep the house comfortably warm even when winter temperatures plunge to 35 below. The owners built their home themselves using lumber harvested from their land. While these solar residences achieved thermal self-sufficiency, they were still dependent on conventional sources for their electricity. Challenged by this next frontier, SDA began searching for ways to generate electricity on-site and discovered the solar electric technology of photovoltaics. More...
© 2002 Solar Design Associates, Inc. P.O. Box 242, Harvard Massachusetts 01451-0242 Phone: (978) 456-6855 Email:
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