Solar Enclosure for Water Reclamation and Thermal Control

Building Envelope System for Water Recycling, Purification & Thermal Comfort

Future conditions of water as a limited resource are challenged by population growth, rising living standards, industrial development and increasing urbanization: all key contributors to water scarcity, and increased energy consumption in the built environment.

Business-as-usual water management in the coming decades threatens already vulnerable water resources with over exploitation. The solar Enclosure for Water Reuse (SEWR) system is a stationary concentrating solar-driven hybrid system for reclaiming onsite greywater while decreasing both primary energy consumption and solar heat gain that is associated with glazed building facades and mechanical systems.

Modular cast glass geometries are shaped to redirect and capture direct solar irradiation, providing interior shading and diffuse daylight spatial conditions. Coupled with multi-barrier decontaminates building greywater effluent by inactivating pathogenic contaminants. The SEWR system prototype presents a contextual exhibition of the water cycles in the built environment by thrusting water networks out of the ground, out of centralized basement-bound greywater systems; and into proximity with the spaces, humans inhabit.

Project Date: 2016

Researchers: Anna Dyson, Jason Vollen, Matt Gindlesparger, Kristine Malone, Peter Stark, Satoshi Kiyono

Collaborator: SOM

Sponsor: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency