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Michael Jantzen's Solar Wind Pavilion

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.23.07
Design & Architecture

windtower1.jpg

Michael Jantzen of the Transformation House and the Wind Shaped Pavilion proposes yet another wind and sun powered structure, this time for the California State University at Fullerton.

A vertical axis turbine and four rings of photovoltaics generate electricity that is stored in batteries, or as Jantzen says "Some of the electrical energy gathered by the wind turbine and the photovoltaic cells can also be stored in the form of hydrogen gas. This gas is formed from the wind and sun energy gathered by the structure and from rainwater that is collected from the canopy roof."

windtower2.jpg

"Aesthetically, the structure was conceived of as a large umbrella that is symbolically shaped by the rotation of the wind turbine. Conceptually, as the turbine rotates and gathers energy from the wind, this energy is sent down into the surrounding campus landscape in the form of concentric rings of energy. These rings can also be thought of symbolically as a magnet that works in reverse to draw people toward it."

windtower3.jpg
via ::Jetson Green
::Humanshelter

Comments (4)

Vertical axis windturbines look nice, But you would get a mucher higher yield with a normal horizontal axis windturbine.

jump to top Pieter says:

Good aricle...except for the typo :P

"Aesthetically, the structure was conceived of ass..." oops!

LA: oops! is right, spellcheck missed that somehow. thanks, it is corrected.

jump to top Jay says:

Did you Jantzen or Jetson? :-)

jump to top davidinbali says:

Very slick looking building. While I agree that the vertical axis windmills aren't as efficient as the more common horizontal ones in this case it's much better architecturally.

It will be a neat building to visit.

Ferretman

jump to top Ferretman says:

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