A new residential and commercial building going up soon in Lyon, France is designed to maintain livable temperatures year-round without any heating or air-conditioning systems, but keeping temperatures between 22 and 26C or roughly 72 to 78F.
The design focuses on insulation thatallows the building to store warm air in winter and cool air in summer. It will have triple-glazed glazed windows, concrete floors and 76cm thick walls made of wood-fibre insulation and lime-coated hollow clay bricks. An “intelligent natural ventilation system” will use motorized shutters to allow occupants to control temperatures in their own spaces.
If successful, the building could be a model for others in France and around the world where reducing use of carbon-based fuels is a key component in mitigating the effects of climate change. It’s one of a number of eco-conscious projects being built in Lyon’s Confluence neighborhood.
Passive solar is nothing new. With no experience I designed a house for myself 30 years ago that worked beautifully summer & winter. Is your point the scale of the project or maybe, unsaid, just the fact that it’s taken so long for a such an utterly simple concept to catch on in a more mainstream kind of way?
Certainly not the first passive solar building, but with a design and materials and at a scale that is new, and seen as a model for more. I’m not expert enough to know how novel any of its parts are, though!