Event: Photovoltaics, Forms, Landscapes

How to build large photovoltaic open-field installation for shaping performative landscapes? A parallel event to the 26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and exhibition, Hamburg.
The deployment of photovoltaics continues to increase rapidly, with the total power installed doubling every year. Today most of these installation costs remain near-constant even as module prices decrease substantially. Achieving the necessary large-scale integration of photovoltaics into our energy system will therefore require large-scale deployment beyond the building scale. Therefore, vast "open-field" installations in the multi-MW size (at least one squared kilometre of photovoltaic modules), will likely become part of our landscapes.

This represents a new kind of "productive" land-use, which is currently not encouraged, and even discouraged in some cases. In fact, today, photovoltaic systems are merely "tacked-on" to otherwise productive landscapes, using terrain suitable for other traditional societal uses (agriculture being the obvious example), making photovoltaics in the landscape seem unfavorable to the public.

How to create these future open-field photovoltaic installation acceptable or even desirable, compared to other traditional land uses? What if these installations are seen as a new form of "integration"? What if we think of photovoltaic systems as elements of a new "performative landscape"? This approach leads to the challenge: "How to design a thousand of square kilometres of photovoltaics?"
If we want to avoid that such systems are simply "plunked" on the ground, risking rejection by the public, we have to re-think how to do open-field deployment in the 50 to 100 MW scale. In fact, these installations will have to be designed as an integral part of a "performative landscape", requiring a truly multidiscipinary approach.

This event will highlight the interaction of photovoltaic systems with buildings and landscapes, by showing how architects take various approaches to this challenge.

Four keynote presentations on the transition from photovoltaic architecture into urban and non-urban landscapes will be followed by a round table discussion.

What? Photovoltaics, Forms, Landscapes
When? 6 September 2011 — 14-18:30
Who? Heinz A. Ossenbrink, Chairman of the 26th European PV Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, European Commission, JRC; Alessandra Scognamiglio, ENEA; Mason White, University of Toronto, Lateral Office; David Nelson, Foster + Partners, London; Walter Hood, Hood Design, Oakland, University of California, Berkeley; Simone Giostra, Simona Giostra & Partners, New York, PRATT Institute.
Moderator: Joseph Grima, Domus Editor, Italy

For further information: Here and Here. To register: Here.