Urban Design: Living Solar, in Small Spaces (Albuquerque)

Albuquerque architect Bruce Warren Davis moved from a roughly 1700-square-foot home in the Nob Hill area to a just-over 1000-square-foot dwelling that he designed downtown. Long an innovative and canny solar aficionado, Davis has made the downtown building solar-heated and cooled, utilizing 2×6 frame construction with concrete trombe walls, concrete floors, south-facing windows (of course) and a design that divides public living space from bedroom space, with additional loft space making a partial upstairs for office and studio work. (This post detailed the Nob Hill space a couple of years ago.) Davis writes that the cost of building, excluding land and utilities, was about $100/square foot in 2010.  Heating runs under $50 a
year. This is unit one of a proposed compound of eight or more units. For more information: Brucearchi@gmail.com

Still a board member of the Albuquerque solar company Zomeworks, Davis in his Nob Hill property (a converted laundromat)  had used innovative passive systems like the Zomeworks Sunbender  — lowered in the summer for shade and raised in the winter for maximum solar harvesting. All interior surfaces have beautiful low VOC finishes.