Bruce W. Davis is an American architect based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a member of the Solar Fools group. He has worked in passive solar and earth-building design since 1975, often collaborating with Steve Baer and Zomeworks.
Davis arrived in New Mexico in 1973, during the early wave of passive solar construction. He joined a network of practitioners that included Steve Baer (Zomeworks), Peter Van Dresser (active solar houses in Abiquiú), and William Lumpkins (passive solar adobe). His long-time associate is architect Karen Terry.
His first passive solar house was designed in 1975. His projects consistently use:
The 2009 AIA slideshow by Steve Baer includes a slide showing a "Double Play™ System using Skymats™ to Cool Studio for Bruce Davis, Architect, Albuquerque, NM (2004)" and a "Water Wall Storage of Heat and Coolness, Davis Studio." This places Davis as both a collaborator and a client of Zomeworks thermal systems.
The August 2004 Double Play progress report documents the installation in detail: 12 polypropylene Sky Mat radiator/absorbers on the garage roof (127 sq ft) cooled a 236 sq ft studio (half a converted garage) through 95°F summer days. Circulation was by thermosiphon — no pump. Storage was 42 vertical 4″ PVC drain pipes, plumbed by Tim James (a new Zomeworks hire), holding 200 gallons with 300 sq ft of surface area. Bruce Davis reported "great satisfaction: no noise, no fan and no added moisture." The temperature chart covers July 22 through August 6, 2004.
The progress report closes with the next planned step: "a roll-formed aluminum or copper roof, which will include waterways so the thermally conductive roof can either radiate heat to the night sky or absorb heat from the sun" — the design that became the aluminum rolled formed roof drawing.
The Cap'A blog (a French architecture travel journal) documents a 2017 visit to Davis in Albuquerque. Davis describes his philosophy:
"Buildings have something like nervous systems. Things can be designed efficiently in the simplest way possible, without using the technological complexities deployed in European 'Passiv House' designs, which ultimately use 'active' systems. I have enormous doubts about the virtues of a building designed with technological systems destined to become obsolete within a few years."
This echoes the archive's recurring argument: passive systems outlast active ones because they have fewer parts to fail.
The existing archive-photographs.md page lists two files named 2004-08-bruce-davis-studio-double-play-1.jpg and 2004-08-bruce-davis-studio-double-play-2.jpg. These show the Davis studio where the Double Play system was installed — Sky Mat radiator/absorbers, thermosyphon cooling, August 2004.