Trombe Bench?

I'm putting together a list of desiderata for my dream home. I really like the idea of a trombe wall, but it seems like a lot of space in a small house and it would close off the southern sun from the rest of the house. What about having a wall of windows facing south with a cob bench a couple feet from it? Would this work as well? This way people can face both out to the south, perhaps as a quiet reading space, and in to the north, where the living room space would be. The bench could be just a bench with no back.  Or it could have a low backrest down the middle, splitting it into two sides, one facing south, one facing north. The backrest, I was thinking, might be preferable because it would give more surface area for the sun to hit and would be more comfortable.

I'm still in the dreaming phase, but I'd like input on the design.

Interesting! Sun shining on a dark mass will certainly warm things up.

What would be the implications of summer vs. winter? Maybe you'd like the design to be shaded in summer and be in full sun, maximum duration in the winter.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Interesting! Sun shining on a dark mass will certainly warm things up.

What would be the implications of summer vs. winter? Maybe you'd like the design to be shaded in summer and be in full sun, maximum duration in the winter.

I think with the proper southernly orientation and a good roof overhang, I should be able to  have full sun in the winter and keep it shaded in the summer . Worst case scenario, I rig up shutters or a sun screen over the windows.

By way of explanation: Desiderata is Latin and means 'things that are yearned for'

Built properly a trombe wall does not need to be the full width of a wall.
They work well because of the design, if you want light, benches etc it becomes thermal mass in a room.

Randy Eggert wrote:I think with the proper southernly orientation and a good roof overhang, I should be able to  have full sun in the winter and keep it shaded in the summer .

I agree -- I have seen this firsthand. When we added a south sun porch on our previous house, we accidentally hit the perfect ratio. Mostly shade (and open screens) in high summer, when the sun's angle was high. And in winter the sun would reach halfway up the back wall, heating the space to "sweater comfortable temps" for several hours even when it was -20C outside. We still miss that sun porch; it was a glorious place to hang out and get some light therapy in the depths of our long winter.

Consider also:
The online tools used to determine best efficiency (direct sun) for photovoltaic solar panel installations are also valid for gardens and sunrooms. They lay out the high and low angles, and east/west coordinates, as the sun moves through the seasons for a given location on Earth. Celestial mechanics are so cool. Great planning tool, and it's free.

We've had good results from half trombe walls in our passive solar heated houses in the high desert in the Himalayas. The south facing wall is basically all window, and then we put a three to four foot high wall right inside of it, 6 inches thick, made of concrete bricks and plastered.

I like to make the gap between window and wall wide enough to allow stretching in to clean.

Your bench idea, even further inside, is also a good idea, since in winter the sun does penetrate further into the room. But it would do less to protect from overheating during sunny or hot days, and over chilling on winter nights. Consider building in a convenient and easy curtain system that you can open and close daily to control heat gain or loss.