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The PV infrastructure: Architecture from houses to highways
Author(s) -
Kiss Gregory
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-159x(199607/08)4:4<259::aid-pip137>3.0.co;2-1
Subject(s) - modular design , photovoltaics , architectural engineering , architecture , focus (optics) , built environment , photovoltaic system , computer science , civil engineering , transport engineering , systems engineering , engineering , geography , electrical engineering , physics , archaeology , optics , operating system
Integrating photovoltaics into the built environment presents unique opportunities and challenges. Designers have to mediate between the functional demands of photovoltaics as solar devices and their architectural role as a building material. Photovolt aics are highly modular and will be used in large and small projects; their design will have to be considered at all scales. Solutions to these problems will change, for better or worse, the orientation and focus of the built environment. Will buildings, now mostly indifferent or even hostile to their climate, turn outward, expressing their relationship to the sun, or will the landscape be transformed into a sea of modules, fixed at monotonously optimized angles?