Heliotrope Rotating Home

To maximize exposure to sunlight, some solar arrays track and rotate with the sun. Architect Ralph Disch took the concept and took it to its logical extreme by rotating the entire building to track the sun:

Called the Heliotrope, this innovative home by Ralph Disch essentially "takes full advantage of the sun by rotating with it, allowing daylight to course though its triple-pane windows and energize its large roof-mounted solar array and solar thermal pipes."

Techeblog has more pics and video clip of the Heliotrope in action: Link

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1.2 million euros according to the video. Of course it was expensive to build, it was a prototype. It was also 1994, the technology has probably gotten cheaper since then. It show possibilities. If you are interested just go to the architects site - his name is Rolf Disch - choose English and Past Projects and read about it. By the way, rotating or swiveling houses isn't a new idea. I saw one (as a futuristic idea) in an old ads book and seem to remember there being a house that turned on rails built in the earlier part of the 20th century somewhere in Germany.

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It cost millions to build but that's just OK because lowered energy bills will recoup that loss over a period of hundreds and hundreds of years!!

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Fantastic.

And to preemptively answer the inevitable question(s) from those who are more 'grounded'.

1. Because it's in our nature to explore. It's one of the things that makes humans so special.

2. Because humanity is too precious to risk being confined to one oasis in space.

3. Because we can.

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Speaking for an entire generation that grew up with Clarke, Asimov, Niven, and Heinlein, I say: About Bloody Time, Too!