{"id":10,"date":"2023-01-20T15:38:41","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T15:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/?p=10"},"modified":"2023-01-20T15:38:41","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T15:38:41","slug":"zion-national-park-visitor-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Zion National Park Visitor Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The visitor center at Zion National Park has a neat climate control system. I took a picture of the sign describing it when I visited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2016\" height=\"1110\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/zion-np-trombe-cooling-tower-sign.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Sign from Zion NP describing how the visitor center is heated and cooled.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It was pleasantly cool in the summer. I can&#8217;t attest to its effectiveness in winter. The cooling mechanism does rely on having a convenient source of water, so not exactly a globally scalable solution, but great where it works. Presumably it also requires a smidge of power to pump the water up the tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Excerpts from the sign below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Using only wind, water, and sunlight, the towers cool the visitor center in summer; solar walls heat it in the winter&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trombe (Heating) Wall: This passive solar or &#8220;trombe&#8221; wall faces south to catch maximum sun in winter. The wall&#8217;s passive solar elements collect and release heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the building&#8217;s large volume, no fossil fuels or mechanical heating units are needed&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cooling Tower: Dry desert air blows across water-soaked baffles on top of the tower. Cooled and humidified, the air sinks down the shaft, flows out the vents, and cools the surrounding area. Stand near a cooling-tower vent on a hot day and feel the difference. This design echoes the features that occur naturally in Zion Canyon. At Weeping Rock the dripping springs are a natural &#8220;cooling tower,&#8221; conditioning the air through evaporative cooling.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, the cooling tower is basically a swamp cooler, but without the fans and such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trombe_wall\">trombe wall<\/a> reminds me of schemes used for growing warm-weather plants in regions they have no business being in, covered in these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowtechmagazine.com\/2020\/04\/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html\">two<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowtechmagazine.com\/2015\/12\/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.lowtechmagazine.com\/2015\/12\/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html\">articles<\/a> at lowtechmagazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The visitor center at Zion National Park has a neat climate control system. I took a picture of the sign describing it when I visited. It was pleasantly cool in the summer. I can&#8217;t attest to its effectiveness in winter. The cooling mechanism does rely on having a convenient source of water, so not exactly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kitepunk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}