Design In The Desert

Let me tell you about the desert. First, it’s not dessert, that’s the thing you eat after dinner, and let me tell you, the desert is no piece of cake. It’s vast, dry, deserted and absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have ever encountered.

I grew up in New England, camping, hiking and kayaking in the White Mountains. I am used to this environment where things stay wet and the temperature swings, though not consistently, and never in the same direction. The desert is a totally different environment.

I visited Cedar City Utah and Reno Nevada this summer. Visiting the desert in the summer seems like a bad idea…and I’m not going to lie, it was. We landed in Vegas and it was 110 deg. until we drove to the Utah border where it cooled off to 109. That night however, it cooled off to a nice even 60-70 deg. While in Utah we visited Zion National Park. It is a place where you feel how small you are. There is a single road in and out of the Park. The Canyon walls rise to 3000 feet all around you, and there are rock slides all of the time. One happened 2 weeks before we got there.

At the park I noticed some interesting aspects about the buildings. First, at 110 deg outside, you would assume some pretty heavy HVAC equipment on the roofs, but there were none. The buildings however, were cool. As it turns out, the building employed cooling towers, which are basically chimneys with huge louvers set into the upper walls. These were soaked with water, so when the wind blew through them, the air took on the moisture and would filter through the building.

Another interesting feature of these buildings are the Trombe Walls. These are massive walls built of concrete or masonry set just inside a window. Facing south, these walls block the sun from penetrating the building, and instead, take on that heat. During the very hot days, these walls warm up from sunrise to sunset when it starts to cool off outside. Once the temperature drops, the space wants to regulate its temperature, and the wall will radiate that heat back into the space, keeping the temperature at a pretty constant level. Over time, once the walls and concrete floors get acclimated, the interior temperature stays relatively consistent. This phenomenon actually happens right here in the north east in our basements. If you have ever gone down in your unheated basement in the winter, it is often cool, but not cold. Likewise, in the summer, the basement is often the coolest space in the house. The massive concrete foundation walls have acclimated to the interior temperature and regulate it by taking on, or radiating heat.