judith chafee, architect, designed a passive solar residence in southern arizona in the mid-1980's using lexan and cast concrete. Having grown up in an adobe home, she understood how mass could modulate the Sonora Desert sun.see: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/currents/Content?oid=oid:42143
After graduating from Yale, Chafee had worked with various architects, Eero Saarinen, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Paul Rudolph before returning to Arizona. ecomodista met Chafee through Marcus Whiffen, preëminent British architectural historian who, after pioneering research on the houses and public buildings of Colonial Williamsburg, was ultimately tenured at Arizona State University in Tempe. During a photo shoot for Triglyph, Chafee and ecomodista had a tug-of-war over a potted plant (plants outdoors please, not inside unless inhabiting a greenhouse).
see http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=33063_0_42_0_C156
