Solar Semaphor House

Solar Semaphore House

1tC Studio

Instructors: Adam Rysanek & Blair Satterfield

Class: ARCH 540 (Fall 2021)

Low Embodied Carbon Housing in Squamish, BC

Solar Semaphore House is a mid-sized single family home that is organized around a central gravel silo. Appliances and plumbing are organized around the silo core in order to store heat in the cooler winter months. The form of the CLT roof is a truncated oblique pyramid that sits atop a hemp-block wall. Because the production of hemp sequesters carbon utilizing this block wall allows me to achieve a solid structural foundation while lowering the carbon footprint of the project. The building sits on a minimal concrete ring-beam that is reinforced by helical piles. To create the effect that the building is sunken without the need for excavating below grade, the house is surrounded by a planted berm. This berm allows for occupant privacy and blocks unwanted solar gains.

Further speculating on the idea of this house being a self-regulating temperate environment I was interested in using experimental finishes to harness the power of the sun. For example, could I use a Vanta black coating to absorb thermal gain when desirable in the winter? or apply a highly reflective acrylic white paint to reflect the heat of the sum in the summer? 

I opted to paint the roof of my house with a highly reflective white paint to reflect the sunlight a prevent solar temperature gains. On the south and west sides of the building I have installed rotating panel with one white face and one black, the idea is that these panels could be flipped to white-side-out  in the summer month, flipped black-side out in the winter months, or on milder spring or fall days they could be opened up to micro-adjust the temperatures of each space.      

The flipping black and white panels function as semaphore signals, communicating with the sun about the thermal desires of this house and its occupants