Profiles
Climate × construction reality checks for passive solar design
Passive solar design does not fail because strategies are wrong.
It fails because they are applied in the wrong context.
Profiles exist to correct that.
Each Profile describes how a specific climate behavior interacts with a specific construction archetype—before design decisions, rules of thumb, or simulations are applied.
This is not a catalog of solutions.
It is a framework for understanding what dominates performance in a given context.
What Profiles do
Profiles help you quickly identify:
- which forces actually govern building performance
- whether passive solar gains are an opportunity or a liability
- which risks dominate early design decisions
- where common strategies stop working
They are designed to be read before glazing ratios, thermal mass, or insulation strategies are fixed.
How Profiles are structured
Each Profile combines two filters:
1. Climate behavior
Not labels, but how the climate actually behaves over time.
Examples include:
- heating-dominated vs cooling-dominated
- high diurnal swing vs stable temperatures
- seasonal solar availability
- duration and intensity of heat loss or heat gain
2. Construction archetype
How the building system responds to those forces.
Typical archetypes include:
- heavyweight systems (high thermal mass)
- lightweight systems (low thermal mass)
- hybrid envelopes
- highly insulated / airtight systems
The interaction between these two determines what matters most—and what does not.
Dominant risk: the core question
Every Profile answers one primary question:
Is performance limited by heat loss, or by control of gains?
This distinction determines:
- whether passive solar strategies are viable
- how forgiving the system is to design error
- where optimization effort should be focused
Many projects fail because they optimize gains in systems dominated by losses—or vice versa.
Profiles make that visible early.
What Profiles are (and are not)
Profiles are:
- context filters
- performance reality checks
- a starting point for sound decision-making
Profiles are not:
- design prescriptions
- universal rules
- climate-agnostic advice
- substitutes for simulation
They exist to prevent misapplied logic, not to replace engineering.
How to use Profiles
- Identify your climate behavior
- Identify your construction archetype
- Read the corresponding Profile
- Use it to frame early decisions
- Then move to Decision Notes and optimization
Profiles define the terrain.
Decision Notes help you navigate it.
Relationship to Decision Notes
Profiles answer:
“What dominates performance in this context?”
Decision Notes answer:
“How should I think about a specific passive solar decision within that context?”
Used together, they prevent early design assumptions from becoming locked-in mistakes.