Page 42 - ISES SWC50

1954
• Farrington Daniels and John Duffie set up the Solar Energy Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin
Madison. Bill Beckman became the Second Director of the laboratory in 1988. Over the years over 100
students in Mechanical and Chemical engineering received MS and PhD degrees from UW Solar Energy
Laboratory.

1957
• George Löf built a house in the Cherry Hills neighborhood of Denver which used a Löf designed flat-plate
collection system which heated air and circulated the heat to be stored in rock beds in large cardboard
tubes inside the house. This lead to rock bed storage design criteria that is still used today. Löf lived in the
house for more than 50 years until his death.
• Development of Black Nickel by Harry Tabor in Israel and later black chrome

1958
• Hoyt Hottel and his student Austin Whillier began the practice of “solar engineering”. Studies of the
performance of the five solar buildings at MIT lead to the development of the Hottel-Whiller equation”.
Hottel, H.C., and Whillier, A. (1958) Evaluation of flat plate collector performance, Transactions of the
Conference On the Use of Solar Energy, 2. According to Beckman 1998 The “equation has stood the test
of time”. About the only modification of this equation that has been deemed necessary is to include the
temperature dependence on UL.

Late 1950s
• In the late 1950’s and 60s Early research on solar water heating was undertaken in Australia by Roger
Morse, Wal Read, Bob Dunkle, Terry Hollands and Don Close of CSIRO and Bill Charters Univ of
Melbourne.

5.4 Solar Architecture Buildings 1950-1959
1956
• Solar houses are built in Tokyo ,Japan and in Bristol and Rickmansworth in England.
• Architect Frank Bridgers designed the world’s first commercial office building (Bridgers-Paxton Building)
in Albuquerque, New Mexico using solar water heating and passive design.
1957
• Dr George Löf built a house in the Cherry Hills neighbourhood of Denver which used a novel method to
collect and store solar heat. It was designed by architect James M. Hunter, and Löf designed a flat-plate
collection system which heated air and circulated the heat to be stored in rock beds in large cardboard
tubes inside the house. Löf lived in the house for more than 50 years until his death.
• AFASE launched The International Architectural Competition, in cooperation with the Phoenix Association
of Home Builders. (Refer to Section 5.1 ISES 1950-1959)
1958
• Solar houses were built in Casablanca Morocco and Nagoya Japan.

1959
• MIT Solar IV, located in Lexington MA, was completed in 1959 after the Department of Architecture held
a contest on solar house design. After collecting data for three heating seasons, MIT sold the house to a
private owner.

24 | ISES SWC50 - The Century of Solar-Stories and Visions