Reading: Diagram Label Completion: Question 8

Passive solar design uses a building's orientation, materials and geometry to capture, store and release the sun's heat without any mechanical heating or cooling system, and a single-storey demonstration house, the Aldermoor House, completed in 2022 by the architect Priya Ostrander, illustrates the main features found in most passive solar homes in temperate climates.

The house is oriented so that its longest wall, made almost entirely of glass, faces south, maximising the amount of low-angle winter sunlight that enters through the glazing during the coldest months. Because the sun sits much higher in the sky in summer, a wide roof overhang projects out above the glazing and is calculated to block the more overhead summer sun while still admitting the lower winter sun, keeping the interior comfortably cool once the weather turns hot.

Sunlight that passes through the glazing strikes a mass wall built from dense, dark-coloured concrete blocks positioned directly opposite the windows. This wall absorbs solar energy throughout the day, slowly warming to the touch, and then releases that stored heat back into the room by radiation for several hours after sunset, smoothing out the difference between daytime and night-time temperatures without any need for a furnace. A similar principle applies underfoot: a storage floor of unfinished tiled concrete performs the same absorb-and-release function for sunlight that lands directly on the floor rather than on the vertical wall.

Higher up, a row of small clerestory windows sits just below the roofline on the north side of the house, admitting additional daylight deep into the interior without the unwanted heat gain that a large north-facing window would allow, since north-facing glass in this hemisphere receives very little direct sun. On hot days, opening the clerestory windows together with vents low down near the floor allows warm air to escape from the top of the room while drawing cooler air in near the ground, creating a natural convection current through the house.

Finally, opposite the glazing, the house's north wall is heavily insulated with thick layers of mineral wool and contains no windows at all, minimising the heat that escapes from the building on cold nights, when the temperature difference between indoors and outdoors is at its greatest.

The diagram below shows a cross-section of the Aldermoor House, viewed from south (left) to north (right). Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

1 ____________________. The large glass surface on the long south-facing wall that lets in low winter sunlight 2 ____________________. The structure projecting above it, sized to block high summer sun but admit low winter sun 3 ____________________. The dense, dark-coloured concrete wall opposite the windows that absorbs and later releases solar heat 4 ____________________. The unfinished concrete surface underfoot that absorbs sunlight falling directly on it 5 ____________________. The row of small windows below the roofline on the north side that admits extra daylight 6 ____________________. The openings low near the floor that, together with the windows above, create a convection current 7 ____________________. The heavily insulated wall opposite the glazing that has no windows at all