Zomeworks Corporation is Steve Baer's passive solar engineering and manufacturing company, founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the late 1960s. It is the institutional home for every product and patent in the archive.
Address (2002–2004): 1011 Sawmill Rd NW, PO Box 25805, Albuquerque NM 87125 USA
Phone: 505 242-5354 · Fax: 505 243-5187
Web: www.zomeworks.com · Email: [email protected]
Current status (2026): Zomeworks as it existed under the Baers no longer exists. Following Steve Baer's death in May 2024 and Holly Baer's subsequent death, the company passed to a new owner who has not yet done anything visible with it. The institutional knowledge, staff relationships, and product lines of the Baer era are not confirmed to continue.
"Zomeworks" fuses zome (zone-dome polyhedra) and "works." The Dome Cookbook (1968) records the origin: Baer and Durkee coined "zome" in conversation — they agreed the structures weren't domes because stretching zones makes them asymmetrical. The co-founders Berry Hickman and Ed Heinz both appear in the Dome Cookbook as active collaborators before Zomeworks was founded: Hickman building domes at Manera Nueva (discovered that covering one dome stiffens neighbors); Heinz "working on new designs at Drop City."
By 2002 two related entities appear in documents: Zomeworks Mfg., Inc. and Cool Cell, Inc. — suggesting the thermal product line was organized as a separate corporate vehicle. The 2004 shareholders letter is signed by Baer as "President, Zomeworks Corporation."
Internal telephone extensions: Baer (architectural Cool Cell division, ext 227); Jesse Rodefer (architectural Cool Cell division, ext 232).
| Product | Description | Patent |
|---|---|---|
| Zome structures | Zone-dome polyhedra; 31-zone structural system | US Patent 3,722,153 (filed 1970, issued 1973) |
| DrumWall | Water-filled drums behind south glazing for thermal mass | — |
| Skylid® | Freon-actuated insulated louvers, no electricity | US 3,884,414 (1975) |
| Sunbender® | Mirrored reflector/shade panels; solar tracker; summer/winter louver control | US 4,275,712 (1981), US 4,476,854 (1984), US 4,505,255 (1985) |
| Solar collector thermal control | Expansion tank overheating protection for solar collectors | US 4,528,976 (1985) |
| Solar panel support | Lightweight tracking mount frame | US 4,832,001 (1989) |
| Freeze-tolerant collector tube | Stretchable tube in rigid channel; expands with ice | US 5,143,053 (1992) |
| Passive battery cabinets | Night-sky-cooled enclosures for telephone company equipment | US 4,913,985 (1990), US 5,070,933 (1991), US 5,316,872 (1994) |
| Battery hydrogen venting | Passive H₂ venting using gas buoyancy; co-invented with D.C. Harrison | US 5,603,656 (1997), US 5,660,587 (1997) |
| Cool Cell™ | Passive architectural climate-control: water ceiling + roof radiators | US 5,513,696 (1995), US 6,357,512 B1 (2002) |
| Double Play™ / Skymats™ | Dual-function thermosiphon heating and cooling | US 6,357,512 B1 (2002) |
| Roll-formed aluminum roof | Snap-in copper pipe water channels; planned product line | — |
The battery cabinet line — thousands of units sold to telephone companies — was a significant commercial product based on the same night-sky radiative cooling principle as Cool Cell, predating the architectural version.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Steve Baer | Founder, President |
| David Harrison | VP; 12+ years with Cool Cell technology; believed in strong local Albuquerque market |
| Jesse Rodefer | Architectural Cool Cell division; spokesman to press |
| Tim James | Installer (Bruce Davis studio, 2004); later seeking spec house |
| Bill Mingenbach | Suggested 8" PVC ceiling pipes (1999); key Cool Cell development step |
| Joe Minella | Named boogie valves (plastic ball check valves in di-thermal wall prototypes) |
| Shawn Buckley | Di-thermal wall with boogie valves concept |
| Bristol Stickney | Heated-vs-unheated plates experiments; Utah experiments |
| Berry Hickman | Rectangular trusses; plastic ball joint for zome models |
| Gary Chahroudi | Mentioned as potential contributor to 1973 Tribal Messenger |
| BRT | Drew aluminum rolled-formed roof drawing (01-22-03) |
| Project | Location | Year | System |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baer House | Corrales, NM | 1971 | Zome cluster, DrumWall, Skylid, Sunbender |
| Monte Vista School | Albuquerque | 1973 | Greenhouse (Dave Harrison / Zomeworks) |
| Benedictine Monastery | Pecos, NM | 1978 | Drum wall, clerestory |
| Andy Shack | Albuquerque yard | 1988– | Test building; unglazed Skymats, shutters |
| Bruce Davis Studio | Albuquerque | 2004 | Double Play Skymats cooling |
| Dave House North | Albuquerque | 2008–09 | Double Play system |
| Container prototype | Albuquerque yard | 2026 | Modular passive thermal testbed |
The Andy Shack is Zomeworks' long-running test building on the Albuquerque property, used for experiments since 1988. Temperature measurements from 2000 and 2002 appear in the archive as primary data for the cooling system performance.
In fall 1969 — the same year Zomeworks was co-founded — Dave Evans of Engelbart's ARC group staged a three-day event called Peradam in the woods near Santa Barbara, bringing together technologists and members of what Fred Turner calls the "New Communalist" movement. Turner lists Zomeworks among the participants: "research institutes such as SRI and the Ecology Center and countercultural organizations such as Zomeworks (builders of domes), Portola, and the Hog Farm commune."
This places Zomeworks in direct contact with Stanford Research Institute in its founding year, and connects Baer to the network around Engelbart's human-computer interaction research and Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog.
Source: Fred Turner, "From Counterculture to Cyberculture," Ch. 4 (U Chicago Press, 2006)
Consistently adversarial. NSF grant success: "0 — actually less than 0 figuring the time wasted writing proposals" (Sunspots, 1975). The company relied on private capital — the 2004 shareholders letter raised $93,000 from investors at $3.00/share to fund the roll-form machine. Six projects were in the pipeline at the time.
Senator Domenici was contacted for help connecting Zomeworks to Army building contracts in Iraq (2004). The 2006 NSRC state field study independently validated the thermal claims, but funding ran through the state, not Zomeworks.
Baer's stated vision in the 2004 shareholders letter: trained teams with roll-formers and coiled aluminum, operating in Amarillo, Denver, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and California — "perhaps the businesses will be franchises." The architecture was meant to be simple enough to travel: "Every part is simple, every connection easy. No anti-freeze, no heat exchangers, no glass."
Cool Cell's deployment strategy as of 2002: piggyback on existing pool solar infrastructure ("harvesting a second crop off his solar pool heater"), then move to purpose-built systems. Services offered: design consulting, materials supply, on-site installation support.
Books and papers by Baer published under Zomeworks: