ARCHITECTURE IN NATIVE AMERICAN IDIOM
Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration
College of Environmental Design, University of Colorado/Boulder, 1987-1990
This Project is a collaboration with Dr. Charles Cambridge
According to an ancient myth, when the Navaho People (Dine) came from their previous world into the present world, the Twin Gods of War went to the sun, who was not yet a Navaho god, to accuse him of being their father. The sun lived in a solar house. He told the Twins to return to the People and tell them that in the future they would all live in houses like this...and the young people would show everyone how to make them.
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Dr. Charles Cambridge, Navaho anthropologist, in his homeland near Canyon deChelly, Arizona.
The traditional hogan can be expressed in the male or female form.
The Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration, with its three hogans. The largest on the left has a traditional hogan at its core, surrounded by another 1200 sf of solar heated space; in the middle is a traditional hogan with a passive solar porch wrapped around the south side; the traditonal stone hogan at the right, has had the south mass walls converted to Trombe walls, using a "homemade" fiberglass material for glazing.
A small solar hogan plan. Compare to next panel.
The floor plan of the large hogan. The traditional hogan with entry door facing east is on a higher level; its smokehole is also used to ventilate the entire building.
The big solar hogan with its sunspace, solar hot water heater and photovoltaic array to the left.
The building cross-section of the large hogan. A clerestory glazing also heats the walls of the hogan core.
The large hogan during construction by the University of Colorado/Boulder Environlmental Design students.
The large solar hogan looking at the solarium on the south side. It got dubbed the "Darth Vader" hogan.
Students discuss the installation of a special metal roof donated to the project by a Swedish company.
Members of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council visit the hogans on a winter day. Shimon Kabili, a native Israeli, who as a student assisted Prof. Holloway with daily project administration and fund raising, is second from the left.
Wilma Mankiller, Chief of the Cherokee Nation visited the Project.
The Blessingway Ceremony day, when Navaho Medicine Man was flown to Boulder Campus to bless the Hogans in a traditonal ceremony. A large contingent of Coloradoans attended the ceremony.
The smallest tradtional hogan showing the glazing supports for the southside Trombe wall conversion.
Nasser Jafar, a native Kuwaiti, a student with a background in big construction in offshore oil platforms, acted as the Project construction supervisor. He got the construction process on track, when it got into difficulties from time to time.
Wooden structural members for the project were collected from a recent Boulder County forest fire, and then pealed with draw knives by this spirited (and grimy) group of students.
Students experimented with different ways to construct the traditional cribbed-log domes.
The interior of the middle hogan sunporch.
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© 2009, Dennis R. Holloway Architect