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Students Build Unusual Solar Pavilion in Barcelona

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The Smart City Expo in Barcelona featured this interesting Endesa Pavilion from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Solar panels are set at various angles on mini facades, to get a balanced solar generation throughout the year in both summer and winter.

For winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, panels are set with maximum inclinations around 30 degrees. And for summer solar radiation, with maximum inclinations about 70 degrees. The vertical protections provide more protection from the sun in the summer.

The result is that in winter the windows will let the most sunshine in, with the most heat gain, and in summer the windows are in shade, avoiding heat gain.

I like the way the size and shape of the solar panels determined the size of the window outcroppings.

The solar house is a solar house in another sense too,  the students explain.

“We built a solar house with solar material. Wood is a living material that grows in the sun. It is an inexhaustible material produced in culture. Is a soft, accessible, easy to work, adapt and join. It’s a warm material, which provides high thermal insulation.”