How could buildings capture and store solar radiation? In 1939, MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering constructed a small building to determine ideal solar angles and test different panel configurations. The ‘heat-extracting medium’ indicated in the panel diagram was water, then stored in an insulated tank under the buildings.
Citation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Solar Energy Fund at the Massachusetts Institute of the Technology, Building 34 MIT Solar House I, 1939, photograph and drawings, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Library Item date:
1939