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By Peter Fairley

Solar panels adorn the upper reaches of The Solaire, like Manhattan’s first solar high-rise at 4 Times Square [RECORD, March 2000, page 90]. But The Solaire also features a 28-foot-wide column of PV panels, starting above the southwest-facing front entrance and rising 13 floors. This feature screams “renewable power,” whereas 4 Times Square’s thin-film panels are indistinguishable from tinted glass. Pelli says the panels expand the design to “argue for a different kind of building expression” while also meeting the strict guidelines for Battery Park City, which specify glass and brick construction. The key, he says, is the pieced-together appearance of the cells. “They have a visual quality all their own, and yet they are very sympathetic, with the fine-grained texture of a brick wall. The monocrystalline cells break down into a series of pieces, so they feel like very modular units making up this larger field,” he says.

Photography: Courtesy The Colt Group Recent office buildings in Germany (left and opposite, bottom left) demonstrate a PV aesthetic that’s just beginning to emerge in the U.S. At The Solaire in Manhattan’s Battery Park City (below), solar panels are built into the facade above the entrance, the most visible of the project’s environmental features. Visitors to the Domaine Carneros Winery in Napa Valley can glimpse its rooftop PV array from surrounding hills (opposite, top left). Photography: Courtesy The Solaire Photography: Courtesy Powerlight Photography: Courtesy The Colt Group National Renewable Energy Laboratory (right two)

Like The Solaire, Colorado Court is anything but shy about its photovoltaics. Pugh + Scarpa partner Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, says that his firm views sustainability as a design tool. At Colorado Court, power production was, in a sense, only part of the justification for using PVs on the building. “I thought it was crucial to making the building look good, and the only way we could sell that was if it had a function,” says Scarpa.

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