Overview

Every regenerative building begins with a place. Not a program or a budget or an aesthetic vision — a place. Before a single design decision is made, the designer must understand the land: its climate, its solar geometry, its hydrology, its winds, its soils, its ecology, and its relationship to the people who will live there.

This is what architects call bioclimatic design: the practice of shaping buildings to respond to the specific conditions of their location in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for mechanical heating, cooling, and lighting. When done well, a bioclimatic building uses its form, orientation, and materials to harvest exactly the energy it needs from its environment, and to protect its occupants from conditions that are uncomfortable or harmful. The result is a building that is simultaneously more comfortable and less energy-intensive than a conventional structure of the same size.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aeschylus wrote: “Only primitives and barbarians lack knowledge of houses turned to face the winter sun.” The principle is that old, and that obvious, once you understand it. Yet for most of the 20th century, cheap energy allowed the construction industry to forget it entirely, producing buildings that could be pointed in any direction and simply air-conditioned into habitability. That era is over. The energy and climate consequences of that approach have become impossible to ignore, and the knowledge of climate-responsive design must be recovered and taught again.