In the future, buildings will need to “coast” when the electrical grid is stressed. Can you use the night sky to cool your home or office?!
Summer 2023 has produced the hottest days in modern history. Indigo’s mission is to design projects that are simultaneously resilient in the face of extreme weather and that wean our culture off of greenhouse-gas-producing fossil fuels by using zero net energy.
We foresee a future where buildings will need to “coast” when the electrical grid is stressed. We are currently advising the state of california on ZNE building initiatives after designing a zero-energy transit center for Vacaville, our own ZNE office in Davis, and an award-winning 6-story apartment building that can operate off the grid for several days.
How can the night sky cool your home or office?
In summer, a roof-flow system exposes water to the cold night sky. This radiantly-cooled water acts like a temperature-regulating circulation system, cooling the building through a system of pipes installed in floors and ceilings.
This is just one strategy of ZNE cooling. Our whole-systems design approach integrates elegant, energy-efficient and cost-saving solutions from the very beginning of the design process. We design buildings that passively and actively extract energy from their immediate surroundings, working with nature, not against it.
