From the solar collector to reused autonomous houses: Architectural inquiry about european sustainable housing during the 1970s

This thesis aims to investigate architectural approaches in response to the energy and financial crisis of the 1970s in Europe. More precisely, the research takes the architectural journals as the main source to investigate housing projects mainly located in France and England. Throughout the 1970s architectural and urban experiments related to solar housing, reuse of materials, autonomy in terms of energy and food increased remarkably, while during the 1980s they diminished considerably. Undoubtedly when during the 1980s the energy and economic crisis ended, energy efficiency wasn’t a priority anymore and technology played a relevant role in the commercial development of society. As a consequence, several highly energy-consuming neighbourhoods and high-tech energy-efficient buildings were realised.

The thesis deeply analyses the architectural design of the house throughout the 1970s and its integration by solar walls working as embedded solar collectors, construction with reused materials, and greenhouses functioning as thermal buffer also producing food. Liveable greenhouses and structural cores supporting windmills could also be a room containing the entrance, a circulation or a leisure space, becoming not only technical but also spatial devices. The investigation revealed that the energy efficient architectural interventions of the 1970s even if innovative, often disregarded aspects such as aesthetics, the maintenance of the technical installations, the behaviour and the human health of the users, the social qualities of spaces like interaction and commonality. Most of the literature of the time didn’t highlight the scarce investigation about these aspects. This might be one of the reasons why after the 1970s these passive examples didn’t spread and develop extensively anymore.

The thesis, even if historical in principle, aims to inform the contemporary debate about very relevant topics of nowadays such as the circular economy in the built environment and the discussion about the use of active sustainable high technology against the adoption of local, traditional and passive techniques.