Solar Building

In a 1979 Department of the Interior publication, National Register Historians Marcella Sherfy and W. Ray Luce indicate that historical significance "may be represented by a building or structure whose developmental or design value is quickly recognized as historically significant by the architectural profession". Following its completion in 1956, the Solar Building's significance was acknowledged in Architectural Record Magazine (December 1956), Architectural Forum (January 1957), Progressive Architecture (March 1957), Life Magazine (December 1956), and Fortune Magazine (November 1957). In later years its significance was recognized by the National Science Foundation (1974), New Mexico Professional Engineer (1975), and Architectural Record Books Energy Efficient Buildings (1980). These organizations have recognized the unique contribution of Solar Buildings to modern architectural and mechanical design, and to the continuing development of solar energy.

Sherfy and Luce, in the same Department of the Interior publication, indicate a recent building may be of exceptional significance... because that building type is very scarce". In May of 1975, William A. Shurcliff surveyed solar-heated buildings in the United States. Shurcliff is an Honorary Research Associate in the Physics Department at Harvard University. Of the 138 buildings reported by Shurcliff, nearly 100 of them were initiated after 1970. As might be expected, the majority of the remainder are residential structures, further demonstrating the scarcity of commercial solar buildings constructed prior to 1970. In a later book, Solar Heated Buildings of North America: 120 Outstanding Examples, Shurcliff cites only four commercial office buildings. Of those four, only the Solar Building was constructed prior to 1976.

When the Solar Building was completed in 1956, active solar systems were considered experimental and an uncertain heating source. The technology and the use of active solar heating were less than 20 years old. The decision of Frank Bridgers and Donald Paxton to incorporate an active solar system into their building as their sole heating represented a considerable personal risk, but their confidence in the system was justified. The resultant system contributed significantly to the history and the development of the technology of applied solar energy.

As early as 1909, William J. Bailey developed a solar water heater. Solar energy for water heating was in common use during the first four decades of the 20th century. However, no full-scale application of an active solar heating system for an entire building was made until 1939. After a year of research, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) installed solar flat plate collectors, a pumping system, and a water storage tank in a specially constructed "solar house". The results were favorable. A considerable amount of data was collected regarding the optimum tilt angle for the collector, light transmission of the glass cover, heat loss, and the most effective type of absorber plate. With this basic data established, effective working systems could be developed.

The advent of the Second World War interrupted the M.I.T. experiments, but experimental work was continued by George Lof in Colorado on residential solar heating systems using air instead of water as the heat transport medium. After the war, M.I.T. renewed its work with solar-heated water systems. Concurrently Dr. Maria Telkes developed Glauber salt as a heat storage medium. By 1948 enough work had been done to encourage architect Arthur Brown to design a solar heating system for a public school in Tucson. This system worked well for ten years but was removed when the school was expanded in 1958. Many structures with early solar systems have been destroyed, or have had the systems removed, again emphasizing the scarcity of early solar systems.

During these years of low energy costs, inventors and experimenters in solar energy kept working, many driven by their concern that non-renewable sources of energy were both finite and subject to the whims of the governments of the producing countries. These solar pioneers formed the Association for Applied Solar Energy Research in 1955 and that year held the first World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy in Phoenix, Arizona. Frank Bridgers, a young engineer from Albuquerque, attended the conference. Already familiar with solar energy research, he returned home newly inspired to attempt a practical application of the known principles of solar heating.

Bridgers was born in Birmingham, Alabama, received a mechanical engineering degree from Auburn University, and graduated with a master's degree from Purdue in 1948. His interest in solar energy began while he was a graduate student at Purdue. There, he studied with Professor F. W. Hutchinson in a special program on residential solar applications sponsored by the Libbey-Owens-Ford Company. After working with Charles S. Leopold, the Philadelphia engineer that designed some of the earliest commercial installations of radiant panel heating, Bridgers came to New Mexico as a consulting project engineer. He met Donald Paxton at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, now Los Alamos National Laboratories, and the two went into partnership in 1951.

Both were interested in the applications of solar energy. After their initial experiments on the roof of Bridgers' garage, they optimistically drew up plans for the Solar Building. After a lengthy search for financial backing, they obtained a loan from Albuquerque National Bank and began construction 1956 of the first solar-heated commercial building in the world.

Articles in a number of magazines hailed the innovative nature of the Solar Building. Life Magazine, in December 1956, reported "an odd-looking new office building in Albuquerque, N.M. has one wall sheathed in glass and tilted to face the sun... [The Solar Building). ..is the first commercial structure in the country to be heated entirely by the sun." Progressive Architecture, The Architectural Record, and the New Mexico Professional Engineer wrote enthusiastically about the Solar Building. The March 1957, issue of Progressive Architecture noted:

In recent years, numerous published papers have discussed various aspects of exploiting free and abundant energy for domestic heating and a few solar houses have actually been built, lived in, and studied. For the most part, these examples have been in the realm of theory and applied research. Now, for the first time, a solar commercial building has been built in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to house the offices of Bridgers & Paxton, well-known engineers who have executed mechanical designs for some of the most outstanding contemporary buildings in the Southwest.

The first year of operation (1956-57) had the cloudiest January in Weather Bureau records, yet the building performed up to expectations despite some minor problems. These were soon corrected and the system maintained comfortable temperatures in the building for six years.

"Fuel costs were so low in the U.S. during the early Sixties that the additional construction cost for solar heating could not be justified on an economic basis." When the building was expanded in 1962, the owners decided to augment the solar heating system with a conventional boiler.

Recognizing the building's historical significance, the owners retained the integrity of the original solar system. None of the system's equipment was removed. The new conventional heating system used the original mechanical equipment, leaving the solar system intact so that it could be re-activated at a later date.

Twelve years later their prudence was justified. Rapidly rising energy costs renewed interest in Solar buildings. In 1974 the original system with some minor modifications was put back into operation. Dr. Stanley F. Gilman of Pennsylvania State University received a National Science Foundation research grant to restore the system and provide instrumentation for a demonstration and research program to establish a design procedure for solar-assisted heat pump systems. The NSF hoped to provide a procedure that could be put into wide use throughout the country. The results of the study were reviewed in a workshop at Pennsylvania State University in 1975 and published in 1976. As a result of the 1974 retrofit, the solar system with its solar-assisted heat pump continued to be used to heat the original part of the building.

The active solar system in the Solar Building has served as a model for over fifteen systems designed after 1956. One such is a solar-assisted heating system for the Denver Community College, possibly the largest active solar system in the nation. Similar to the original system, this particular system heats 300,000 square feet of floor area. For his work in solar energy, Purdue University awarded Frank Bridgers the Distinguished Alumnus Award of 1978. The award stated in part; "Mr. Bridgers is one of the pioneers and innovators in utilizing solar energy to heat and cool large commercial buildings. He and his firm designed the first completely solar-heated office building in the world."

In 1977 Bridgers was a keynote speaker at an international solar energy conference in London. The conference, "Profits, Projects, and Solar Energy", brought together solar specialists from sixteen different countries. Bridgers' speech "Large Scale and Commercial Applications of Solar Energy, Computer Models and Heat Pumps" was based largely on the success of the Solar Building's system and other systems modeled after it. In this way, Solar Building has contributed to the international development of solar energy applications.

The Solar Building's system remains a viable and effective solar method for heating and cooling. It has made and continues to make, a significant contribution to the solar energy field. Knowledge gained from its use has helped others understand the practical applications of solar energy and directed the course of further study and experimentation throughout the nation and the world. As early solar systems continue to be removed, modified beyond recognition, and destroyed the Solar Building's unique historical significance increases. As the Solar Building has never been challenged as the first solar-heated commercial building in the world and given the true scarcity of this application prior to 1970, the registration of the Solar Building will insure the preservation of an integral part of our nation's early solar history.