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The Real Goods Solar Living Center
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lmagine a commercial building set in a landscape designed to inspire with its variety and sense of place. As you explore the grounds, the sounds of water flowing through a natural revitalizing cycle surround you. Envision a building of sweeping beauty, positioned to take advantage of the sun in all its seasonal phases. Picture offices and a 5,000-square-foot retail showroom powered entirely by the energy of the sun and wind. You’re picturing the Solar Living Center in Hopland, CA.
The Solar Living Center (SLC) began as a shared vision among the workers of Real Goods Trading Corp. of Ukiah, CA, and company founder and President, John Schaeffer. It was a vision of an oasis where the company could demonstrate the culture and technology of solar living. With that goal in mind, the SLC design embodies the philosophy described in Real Goods’ various catalogs and publications. The vision is now a reality in Hopland, less than two hours north of San Francisco, in California’s wine country.
Passersby on busy Highway 101 are bound to notice the striking appearance of the company showroom. Designers chose both the building design and the construction materials with an eye toward their efficiency of function and educational value. The result, not unexpectedly, is also a place of great beauty.
Real Goods selected Sim Van der Ryn of the Ecological Design Institute of Sausalito, CA, to design the building. His associate, David Arkin, served as project architect, and Jeff Oldham of Real Goods managed the building of the project. The result is a gracefully curving single-story structure that captures the varying hourly and seasonal angles of the sun so effectively that additional heat and light are nearly unnecessary. Wood burning stoves provide backup heating for the coldest winter mornings, and solar-powered fluorescent lighting is available, but is rarely needed.
A combination of overhangs and manually controlled hemp awnings keeps the sun out during the hot weather months. Operable windows were provided to flush the building with cool night air, storing “coolth” in the 600 tons of thermal mass in the building’s walls, columns and floor. Grape arbors and a central fountain with a “drip ring” for evaporative cooling are positioned along the southern exposure of the building to serve as a first line of defense against the many 100°F+ summer days in this part of California.
Companies and providers with similar interests to those of Real Goods donated many of the materials used in the construction of the building. As an example, the walls of the SLC contain more than 600 ricestraw bales donated by the California Rice Industries Association. Farmers usually dispose of rice straw by burning it, a practice that contributes to the production of carbon dioxide, the so-called “greenhouse gas” that is the leading cause of global warming. By using this agricultural byproduct as a building material, everyone benefits. The farmers get paid for their strawbales, no carbon dioxide is produced, and the building benefits from a low-cost, highly efficient building material that minimizes energy consumption.
A Learning Place
At the SLC, visitors can experience the practicality of numerous applications of solar power, including the generation of electricity and solar water pumping. The electrical system for the facility consists of 10 kilowatts of photovoltaic power and 3 kilowatts of wind-generated power (see sidebar opposite). Through an intertie with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the SLC sells the excess power it generates to the electric company and buys it back only when necessary. Once again, like-minded companies have shared in the costs of developing the Solar Living Center as a demonstration site. Siemens Solar donated more than 10 kilowatts of the latest state-of-the-art photovoltaic modules to the Center and intends to use the SLC as a test site for new Siemens modules in the years to come. Trace Engineering contributed four inverters, which are on display behind the glass window of the SLC’s “engine room” so that visitors may see the inner workings of the electrical system.
Educational opportunities are interspersed throughout the Solar Living Center, beginning with a facility that is open and revealing by design, with the windowed view into the workings of the renewable energy power center and a “truth window,” which exposes the interior of the straw bale walls. On tours, either self-guided or with SLC hosts, visitors learn about the guiding principles of sustainable living and can begin to appreciate the beauty that lies in the details of the project. An education center is planned that will feature video programs on the design and building of the Solar Living Center and related topics of interest. This building will function as a meeting place for presentations by guest speakers and a space for workshops and special events. It will also serve as the main classroom for Real Goods’ popular Institute for Solar Living.
Unique Landscape Design
The landscape, designed by Chris and Stephanie Tebbutt of Land and Place, also offers learning potential. On this project, the landscape design was the first phase of the construction and it established the character of the site. This is a radically different approach compared to typical commercial building projects, where the landscaping often appears to be a cosmetic afterthought. At the SLC, most of the plantings produce edible and/or useful crops and also serve to maximize energy efficiency while dramatizing the rhythms of the solar year. An array of sundials and solar calendars help visitors establish a feeling for the relationship between this location and the sun. Guests observe stones and plantings marking the lines of both sunrise and sunset for each equinox and solstice, emanating from the sundial at the exact center of the site. In this way, both visitors and employees can maintain a perspective on seasonal shifts throughout the year.
A unique feature of these gardens is a series of “Living Structures.” Through annual pruning, plants are coaxed into various dynamic forms, such as a willow dome, a hops tipi, or a pyramid of timber bamboo. These living structures grow, quite literally, out of the garden itself. There is also a “cooling tower’ where overheated visitors stroll through a gentle mist under the shade of vines and agave plants. Another unusual feature is the “memorial car grove,” where the rusting hulks of ‘50s and ‘60s “gas hog” cars have been turned into planter boxes for trees!
The Solar Living Center’s garden follows the sun’s journey through the seasons, with zones planted to represent the ecosystems of different latitudes. Plantings representing Woodland, Wetland, Grassland and Dry zones move from North to South, with the availability of water as the integrating element. Trees are planted to indicate the four cardinal directions. The fruit garden, perennial beds, herbs and grasses reflect the abundance and fertility of a home-based garden economy.
A Place to Play
In case this all sounds too serious, the SLC is also a wonderful place to play! A delightful rainbow spectrum created by a large prism mounted in the roof of the building greets all who enter the showroom. Outside, the designers have provided interactive games and play areas focused on, but not exclusively for, the young. There is a bicycle connected to a light bulb where visitors feel how much muscle energy is required for illumination and compare it to the ease with which the same amount of energy is harvested simultaneously from the sun with a solar panel. A sand and water area features a solar-powered pump that provides a water source that can then be channeled, diverted, dammed and flooded through whatever sandy topography the kids have created. Block the sun reaching the solar panel and you stop the flow of water.
The Solar Living Center is located ninety miles north of San Francisco on Highway 101 and is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is no admission charge to visit. Custom tours are available for groups with particular interests.
Mark Winkler is former Director of the Solar Living Center, 13771 South Highway 101, Hopland, California 95449, (707) 744-2107, FAX (707) 744-1342.
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