Our BatchGeo world MAP shows the locations of projects featured
on Solaripedia. Poplar Forest is a retreat that Thomas Jefferson
designed for himself near present-day Lynchburg, Virginia, in
the early 1800s as a get-away from his busy life at Monticello.
The octagonal home features passive design with integrated
landscape design. Thomas Jefferson employed several passive
design strategies for thermal comfort and daylighting in Poplar
Forest. The home’s 12-inch thick exterior brick walls provide a
mitigating thermal barrier to the hot summers in Virginia’s
Piedmont region. The octagonal floor plan of the house creates a
large middle room, surrounded by exterior rooms on all sides.
This central space forms the Poplar Forest dining room, also the
largest space in the house. As it has no exterior walls, and no
windows, it utilizes a skylight that transverses the ceiling
along and east/west axis to bring daylight to the space without
bringing heat, creating a cool but light retreat. Exterior walls
feature windows