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Another Wavy Roof Heralds a New Energy Design Vernacular

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I’ve noted before how the design vernacular is changing as we start to design for a climate changed future. Architecture is about the future, and has to protect us from what the future holds. Thus we see changes in the architectural design vernacular, with everything from butterfly roofs to catch water in the tropics, to adaptation to unstable melting permafrost in Alaska.

Another change in the design vernacular comes from the new cleaner energy sources that we can now use to try to head off that climate change.

Solar panels on a roof can be integrated harmoniously into the design from the beginning. There’s two types of solar from a design standpoint. Traditional solar panels, as hard as computer cases, can make a sleek finish to a building. But straight.

However, building-integrated thin film solar allows for new roof shapes. Thin film like this made by Konarka has a soft, spongy, bendy quality. Unlike traditional solar, it is also more accepting of light from a variety of angles. So instead of having a normal straight roof, a building powered by thin film solar opens up the possibility of a bendy roof. (Examples of the use of bendy solar include on a stadium that suggests a snake, on the gorgeous Fish House, and even on a gas station. )

Illinois-based Lamboo makes bamboo interior paneling, custom bamboo furniture, bamboo windows and doors, and laminated structural bamboo that can be used in place of less easily renewable wood.

Jetson Green found this concept home on their website, designed to showcase just how great laminated bamboo is for creating free-form wavy wood shapes…

…and if you are making wavy wood shapes in environmentally friendly bamboo, what better to go on top of that but bendy shapes in thin film to make environmentally friendly solar energy from your own roof.