This photo gallery highlights passive solar homes and their features. In the northern hemisphere passive solar buildings are situated so that their windows face the south. This orientation combined with thermal mass, insulation and overhangs are the basics of passive solar design to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Click on an image to see it in a larger format. Click on the right hand side of the picture to view the next image, or click on the left side of the picture to go back to a previous one. Click anywhere outside of the picture to exit the gallery.
Links to articles for more information
- The best of the 2011 Solar Decathlon
- Examples of Passive Solar Buildings Throughout HIstory – Including Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and Greece
- Off the grid Modified Earthship that generates all its electricity
- A Quonset Hut that was retrofitted to be an efficient passive solar house
- Home with a sunroom to help heat the house in the winter
- A passive and active solar log home. It almost achieves net-zero energy in the summer. It’s pretty efficient.
- An old farm house be transformed into a passive solar house
- A modern passive solar house with Trombe walls
- Earthship Biotecture was a concept from Michael Reynolds that uses recycled materials to build a passive solar house