Conservator by Design

Time was that man, acknowledging his dependence on the natural world, built his dwellings as shields against the elements, seeking to modify the stresses of his particular climate. Desert peoples the world around molded thick sunbaked mud walls, slow conductors that allowed the day's heat to penetrate only by the time the night air grew chilly and protected them against the relentless rays of the mid-day sun. Northern tribesmen dug their dwellings into the earth for insulation from temperature extremes and shelter from driving winds.

Then, "somewhere in the process of an evolving culture and society," says architect JOHN-ROBERTSON COX '62, "we lost consciousness to respond to our environment." Advancing technology freed man from the need to accommodate. Instead of adapting to meteorological forces, he manufactured his own indoor climate with mechanical systems to heat, cool, and freshen the air and to brighten the most remote recesses of his buildings. Structural steel permitted sealed curtain walls which served as skin rather than shield — and made the glass tower an architectural fixture from Bangkok to Helsinki. With an easy arrogance, man built what he wanted where he wanted, regardless of site, climate, or orientation to sun angle or prevailings winds. After all, power was cheap and plentiful.

Then came last year's rude awakening, and suddenly the words of Cox and a few others who had long argued that "we are not apart from our environment, but a part of it" took on spiraling relevance. A course on "Energy Conservation in Architecture" Cox and an engineer colleague taught last spring at the University of Pennsylvania - astonishingly, the first of its kind ever offered by an American architectural school — drew three or four times the number of students anticipated. He has published a report on research into thermal energy storage and solar heating conducted at Penn under a grant from the National Science Foundation and been called to testify as an expert witness on the subject by the Senate Commerce Committee. He has been commissioned to design the first solar heated and cooled post office in the country, and prominent political figures and consumer advocates seek his counsel.

Cox is confident that Congress will authorize funds for demonstration projects in solar heating. "There is no question," he says, "that solar energy will be a part of the energy policy of this country, but not a very large part [compared with the development of nuclear power], since it's not very feasible in many areas." In all but a few American "microclimates," Cox explains, solar energy can reduce by varying degrees, but by no means eliminate, the need for conventional energy sources. He anticipates that the cost of thermal storage units — currently about $3,000 for a 1500-square-foot house — will drop if the market place — "not just a few crackpots" — demands.

Senior design architect in the large Philadelphia firm headed by Vincent Kling, Cox took his professional degree at Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts with the highest academic average in his class. After several years as a staff architect with Kling, he left in 1970 to found his own firm, Environmental Design Collaborative. He returned to the Kling organization last year. In the interim he also lectured in architectural design and directed 'he energy conservation program in Penn's Department of Architecture. He continues now to teach more informally, preaching the gospel of energy conservation as a primary criterion of building design through such vehicles as workshops sponsored by the American Institute of Architects.

Although Cox specializes in public buildings, enjoying the challenge of applying his theories to such large complexes as the Hartford Civic Center, the house he designed for his family (he holds a scale model in the accompanying photograph) is an archetypal energy conservator. After rigorous site analysis, it was built on a wooded southwest slope where orientation to the sun cuts the heating season substantially. An undisturbed mix of evergreens and deciduous trees provides wind protection throughout the year and shade in the summer and allows the sun's warmth and light to penetrate in the winter. Expanses of glass on the south wall admit winter sun into the lower-level two-story living room, which shares heat and light with second-level dining and kitchen areas and studio. "On sunny winter days," Cox points out, "the sun's energy provides sufficient heat for the entire house, maintaining an average temperature of 72 to 75 degrees."

The third, bedroom level holds the heat which flows naturally from below, remaining comfortable on winter nights while lower levels are allowed to cool to 55 degrees, and serves as insulation for living areas in the warm months. Overhangs cut off high summer sun; vent windows at the top of the house drain off summer heat rising by convection as sliding glass doors on the lower level admit cool outside air. No air conditioning is needed, and the total heating bill for the 1973-74 season, the first the house was occupied, came to $238, even with the rapid rise in fuel prices.

Far from new, Cox notes, these principals of conservation are "our heritage from time in which man was not so rich in resources and so was forced to adapt to his environment." Nor does their application require aesthetic or cultural sacrifice. To the contrary, "The basic forms of our buildings and our cities could begin to evolve a much more regional character as a response to differing climatic and environmental criteria rather than the bleak sameness we see around us."

"The real issue of energy conservative design ... is a consciousness to respond," he adds. "The fact is that we must respond - we have no choice."