Design
A Solar Building That Twists and Turns to Face the Sun
A Roman concept building would eliminate one of the major problems of solar panels – immobility.
Solar panels are fantastic and all, but they still have one major problem: Being immobile, they only catch a portion of the day's direct sunlight.
Some manufacturers have experimented with putting the panels on moveable mounts that obey an astronomical algorithm, so that they track the blazing star across the heavens to maximize efficiency. In Italy, architects Paolo Venturella and Angelo Balducci have gone one step further: They've designed an entire building whose segments bend and stretch in the sun's direction, squeezing out every possible photon from the earth's ultimate energy-giver.