Tech

House with abundant rays of hope

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-30 08:14

DEZHOU, Shandong - Douglas Wilke, an architect and engineer in New York, has built about 120 houses in the United States since he started his career in the 1960s but his favorite project is in Dezhou, East China's Shandong province.

The four-story house is named Douglas Villa and is a zero-emission house - the electricity used in the 1,252-square-meter building comes from solar collectors on the roof, and the hot water, cooling and heating systems are all solar powered.

Douglas Wilke points to a poster of his zero-emission house. Meng Jing/China Daily

The water-heating system alone saves the equivalent of 43 tons of coal a year, avoiding 115 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 1.1 tons of sulfur dioxide annually.

The 78-year-old architect said he first thought of building such a house in 1966 when he read an article at Columbia University.

"It said that native American Indians lived in the same buildings for 1,000 years without outside energy," he said, adding it was at that time he became interested in energy-saving buildings.

He started putting energy conservation facilities in every house he built, some with solar-energy waste treatment, some equipped with solar heat pumps. But deep down in Wilke's heart, he was still dreaming of building a comprehensive solar energy system - a house that doesn't rely on any traditional energy.

He started to pitch his idea in the 1970s but got nowhere. "It is so difficult to change the way people do things as most Americans believe there is so much energy available," he said.

Most architects in the US are more interested in the look of the buildings and people are not willing to accept the fact they are facing a serious crisis in terms of environmental protection and energy consumption, he said.

In 2003, he turned to the Chinese consulate-general in New York, offering a design of his zero-emission house. "I was told that China can use solar and the US is looking at China. If something works in China, people will believe it can also work in the US," he said.

He was then introduced to Huang Ming, chairman of Himin Solar, a Dezhou-based manufacturer that sells solar water heaters.

Wilke and Huang hit it off immediately. Wilke said the key to promote solar energy is to build good examples that people can refer to and Huang was expanding his business.

From December 2006 to February 2008, Wilke traveled between Dezhou and New York, drawing 125 sketches for his dream house.

"I designed it in different seasons. Geometry and angles are very important for solar energy buildings. You need to let the sunshine in when winter comes but block it in summer," he said.

Douglas Villa, which opened on Sept 13, is among the 40 buildings in Dezhou's solar valley, an industrial and tourist site where Himin Solar is also based. All of the buildings there are designed to save at least 70 percent of the energy used in regular buildings.

Wilke is familiar with every corner of the villa.

"I've dreamed about this day for 35 years," he said.

"There is not a single house like this in the US. Now my new dream is to take what we did here to the US and convince them that we should do it in the US."

China Daily