How Our Homes Work
The black steel roof gets as hot as 55 degrees Celsius (like when you touch or enter a black car on a sunny day). The slope of the south roof is at a right angle to the winter sun for maximum gain. Sensors turn fans on to move the hot air to metal pipes under the floor which in turn give off their heat to the surrounding 20” of concrete and gravel. The heat slowly moves up keeping the floor warm and heating the room air through several days of no sun.
The south roof extends well beyond the south windows shading from the summer sun but allowing the winter sun to penetrate well into the home heating the concrete floor from the top adding more heat to the thermal mass.
Now in houses with a south aspect, the sun's rays penetrate into the porticos in winter, but in the summer, the path of the sun is right over our heads and above the roof, so that there is shade. If then this is the best arrangement, we should build the south side loftier to get the winter sun and the north side lower to keep out the winter winds. To put it shortly, the house in which the owner can find a pleasant retreat at all seasons and can store his belongings safely is presumably at once the pleasantest and the most beautiful.