St. John Cathedral, Napa

This dynamic, modern cathedral (built in the mid 1960′s) had a serious problem with heat gain. We proposed to use passive means to help dump this heat build-up at night, so that the church could be basically ‘reset’ to normal temperatures by morning services. Cool air inlets were proposed at floor level, which would run across the concrete floor, and up out of the apex of the transept – which we proposed could be altered to open like a flower on spring-loaded, hydraulic assisted frames. For the parish school, we also proposed shades structures to reduce heat gain to the classrooms, and a large PV and geothermal array was proposed to power the new active cooling systems.