Overview

The earth is heated radiantly. Almost everyone worldwide identifies with the warmth of the sun. Whether welcoming the sun on a cool spring day or seeking shelter from the sun on a hot summer day, everyone has developed a response to the sun. In fact, many daily activities are planned around the presence or absence of sunshine. Yet, few people think in terms of the sun being the earth s heating system. Perhaps, because the sun is such a dependable, reliable, and predictable heat energy source, people take it for granted.

Few people, whether laypeople or professionals, make the connection between natural radiant heating and cooling in the great outdoors and environmental conditions for human occupancy in the built environment. But they really can be made to function very similarly. The objective is to capture the best of outdoor comfort for creation in the built environment whenever desired or required. To understand what may be involved, it is instructive to examine just how and why nature s heating system actually works.

To the best of our current knowledge, only the earth is dynamically positioned in relation to the sun to enable exploitation of its resources to support life as we know it. The daily rotation of the earth during its annual orbit around the sun results in the simultaneous 24-hour routine we know as day and night and the climatic change...