Passive solar design, green and sustainable building are not new inventions. Who would have thought that we would be returning to the house design principles of more than a century and a half ago?

    I was in San Diego recently and visited the part of town they call Old Town San Diego. I don’t think the buildings are the actual original structures, but they are reproductions that are authentic to the mid 1800′s. One house La Casa de Estudillo, is built in the Spanish Colonial style of the early California settlers. You can see from the photographs that it is built in a “U” shape with a covered veranda wrapping the inside of the “U”. In the center is an outdoor space that is planted and has a water feature in the center. (more…)