Steve Baer

Steve Baer (born October 13, 1938, in Los Angeles; died May 17, 2024, age 85) was an engineer, inventor, and writer based in Corrales and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the co-founder of Zomeworks Corporation. He is the primary figure in the archive — every major technical idea in the wiki originates with him.

Biography

Education and early life: Attended Midland School (boarding school), where he read Lewis Mumford and developed philosophical views about technology’s role in human life. Then UCLA and Amherst College, then US Army (enlisted 1960, served three years in Germany), then Zurich, where he worked as a welder and studied mathematics at ETH. Baer on his own education: “I never quite fit into that whole college thing.” Passive solar was in the family before it was his career: “There was one [wave of interest] championed by ‘House Beautiful’ in the 1940s (my parents built a passive solar house in California in 1949).” (AIA presentation, 2009)

Baer’s own account (50th Amherst reunion, c.2010): he left Amherst in 1957, worked at an aircraft company, took some semesters at UCLA, returned to Amherst for a full year, worked in the Bakersfield oil fields, left Amherst again after conflict, then US Army in Germany — where he married Holly. He later worked as a welder in Zurich while studying mathematics at ETH.

In 1965 he relocated to Albuquerque, first working for Fruehauf Trailer Services, then as a surveyor and welder. In 1968 he moved to Corrales and began experiments with dome structures. In 1969 he co-founded Zomeworks with Barry Hickman and Ed Heinz.

Transformative reading: Baer credited Farrington Daniels’ Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy (Yale, 1964) as the spark for his solar work: “It’s simply surprising when you take these dead materials…and suddenly! In the middle of winter!–there’s warmth.” (MEN, July 1973)

Kayatekin’s 2025 academic paper places Baer within the New Communalist thread of the American counterculture — the strand that sought to reshape society through material invention rather than political struggle, tracing through Buckminster Fuller’s ambition to redistribute technology extracted from the military-industrial complex.

Corrales, New Mexico was his base for his entire working life. He built his own house there in 1971–72 as a cluster of “zomes” (zone-dome polyhedra), which became the first full-scale testbed for the drum wall, Skylid louvers, and reflector/shade panels.

The archive holds one photographic portrait of Baer — a young man seated in a drafting studio, consistent with the 1970s: Steve Baer — portrait in a drafting studio. Its provenance is unconfirmed (the identification rests on the filename alone); treat as likely, not certain.

Timeline

Year	Event
1965	Moves to Albuquerque; works as surveyor and welder
Dec 1964	Holly makes first rhombus-icoso-dodecahedron model in Zurich (grandmother’s attic floor) — origin of zonohedra research
Spring 1965	Working on zonohedra geometry in Albuquerque
Apr 1966	First visit to Drop City — “stunned by Drop City, who were these people?“
1963	Buys Fuller’s untitled Epic Poem in London (first encounter with Fuller)
Early 1968	Dome Cookbook published — credited by Lloyd Kahn as “the first flash of insight” for Domebook One and by Stewart Brand as a direct influence on the Whole Earth Catalog. Its closing page holds the archive’s earliest mention of Baer’s solar work: “I am working on heating and cooling systems — so far without much luck.”
c. 1967–68	Builds first convective air loop rock storage system at Drop City — south-facing solar collectors from car rear windows, river rock thermal mass, air convection loop. On-camera claim in Drop City documentary: “It was the first convective air loop rock storage system that worked, that I know of.”
1968	Moves to Corrales; builds first zome cluster at Drop City
Oct 1968	Attends first solar energy conference (Palo Alto, ~65 attendees) — where Baer and Harold Hay first crossed paths (Kayatekin 2025); Hay was already active in passive cooling (Phoenix prototype built 1967)
1969	Co-founds Zomeworks with Barry Hickman and Ed Heinz
Fall 1969	Zomeworks participates in the Peradam gathering (near Santa Barbara) — ARC/SRI researchers + countercultural organizations including Portola and Hog Farm. Engelbart and Bill English visit Baer at the Libre commune, NM. Fred Turner (2006): Baer described as “the Whole Earth Catalog’s foremost authority on geodesic domes.”
1971–72	Builds the Baer House in Corrales (construction May 1971 – August 1972; 2,000 sq ft at $20/sq ft) — zome cluster, 90-drum drum wall. Skylid work begins at Zomeworks; Skylids installed 1973.
Dec 1972	Quoted by Stewart Brand in Rolling Stone “Spacewar”: “Every time I think of that place I start to scratch my balls. It makes me nervous,” on Xerox PARC / Stanford Research Park — “recalling that most of the evil he knows has emitted from similar ivory towers.” Brand identifies him as “dome and solar designer Steve Baer from dusty Albuquerque.”
1972	Co-founds New Mexico Solar Energy Association with Peter Van Dresser and [[concepts/keith-haggard
1973	Monte Vista School beadwall greenhouse, Albuquerque (Dave Harrison, Zomeworks). Serializes solar physics book in the Tribal Messenger (March–October)
1978	Benedictine Monastery, Pecos — drum wall and clerestory
1988	Andy Shack test building established at Zomeworks yard, Albuquerque
Aug 1999	Switches prototype from wall radiators to rooftop radiators — key Cool Cell step
2000	Cool Cell publicly described in the ABQ Journal; writes Corrales Comment irrigation column; “CO₂ and Global Warming” and “Sunny Days Ahead!” essays
2002	Dense engineering period: Cool Cell brochure, di-thermal roofs, pool-heater cooling, storage, heated-vs-unheated plates experiments
Spring 1973	Visits US Patent Office, Crystal City, VA; attends NSF solar meeting, Washington DC (March)
Summer 1974	Publishes “Gravity Engines and the Diving Engine,” Coevolution Quarterly, pp. 80-86
June 1975	Publishes Sunspots: Collected Facts and Solar Fiction (Zomeworks Corporation; the obituaries and Wikipedia date it 1977 — likely a later edition; the archive copy is dated June 1975, LoC 75-20779); receives Skylid US Patent 3,884,414
2004	Sunmen manifesto (May); Bruce Davis studio Double Play installation (August); Dear Shareholders letter, US Patent 6,357,512 B1, $93K capital raise (September)
2009	Presents NM passive solar survey to AIA Albuquerque chapter (January)
1995	Work featured in Contemporary Developments in Design Science exhibit, St. John the Divine Cathedral, New York City
2010	Receives the 4th Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (UNESCO patronage); French trade press (Batiactu) covered the award but noted Baer did not attend the symposium in person
2012	Publishes More Sunspots (Zomeworks)
2018	Writes “Harold Hay’s influence and the Zomeworks Corporation” — chapter 4 of Activism in Architecture: Bright Dreams of Passive Energy Design (eds. McDonald & Dayer, Routledge) — formal academic acknowledgment of Hay as upstream influence on Zomeworks thermal work
May 17, 2024	Dies at age 85 (Corrales Comment obituary, June 14, 2024)

Products and inventions

Product	Description
DrumWall	Water-filled drums behind south-facing glazing for thermal mass storage
Skylid®	Freon-actuated insulated louvers that open in sun and close at night — no electricity, since 1973
Sunbender®	Mirrored reflector/shade panels that direct winter sun inward and provide summer shade
Cool Cell™	Architectural passive climate-control: water reservoirs in ceiling, roof radiator/absorbers, five operating modes. The telecom battery-cabinet version was ~70% of Zomeworks sales for several years (Kayatekin 2025)
Double Play™	Dual-function thermosiphon heating and cooling from the same roof hardware
Track Rack™	Passive tracker racks “that turn to follow the sun” without electricity; with Fixed Racks and Battery Boxes, the product line that funded Double Play development
Zometool	31-zone truss system marketed commercially; adopted by scientists for quasicrystal and symmetry demonstrations; Jose Baer considers it “possibly his father’s most significant work”
Playground climbers	Zome-geometry play structures sold nationwide
Osmotic heat pipe	Patented; designed for zero-gravity environments. US Patent 3,561,525. Never built — “I am ashamed to say I never once tried out the idea” (Sunspots)
Stock pond melter	Keeps ice hole open for livestock; US Patent 3,618,569. Only the prototype was ever built; the seed of the double-play thermosiphon (Kayatekin 2025)

Full patent portfolio:

US 3,561,525 (1971) — Heat Pipe Condensate Return (osmotic) — Energy Conversion Systems, Inc. [PDF in archive]
US 3,618,569 (1971) — Device for Transferring Heat in Water Reservoir (stock pond melter) — Individual [PDF in archive]
US 3,722,153 (1973) — Zonohedra Structural System (Zome) — Zomeworks [PDF in archive]
US 3,884,414 (1975) — Solar Heating Device (Skylid)
US 4,275,712 (1981) — Suntracking Device with Displaced Heating Surfaces
US 4,476,854 (1984) — Gas Spring Solar Tracker (Sunbender)
US 4,505,255 (1985) — Summer/Winter Solar Control System (Sunbender louver)
US 4,528,976 (1985) — Thermal Control System for Solar Collector
US 4,832,001 (1989) — Lightweight Solar Panel Support
US 4,913,985 (1990) — Battery Temperature Regulation System
US 5,070,933 (1991) — Temperature Regulating System
US 5,143,053 (1992) — Solar Collector Tube Plate
US 5,316,872 (1994) — Passive Cooling System
US 5,513,696 (1995) — Passive Temperature Regulating System (corrugated roof)
US 5,603,656 (1997) — Passive Ventilation Device and Method (with D.C. Harrison)
US 5,660,587 (1997) — Passive Ventilation System and Method
US 6,357,512 B1 (2002) — Passive Heating and Cooling System (Cool Cell)

Collaborators

Named in the archive: wife Holly Baer (died February 23, 2026, after battling Alzheimer’s disease, per a private family communication since redacted from this archive — see Holly Baer for the full sourcing history, including two earlier incorrect passes in this KB); son Jose Baer (the Amherst memorial, co-written by Jose himself, confirms his name; the Corrales Comment obituary erroneously named “son Steve”); daughter Audrey (died c.2018, lung cancer; children Tess and Hannah Johnson); grandchildren Isaac and Sophia Baer; brother William Baer.

Zomeworks co-founders: Barry Hickman and Ed Heinz (1969 per the Amherst memorial, Wikipedia, and Mother Earth News; the Corrales Comment obituary says c.1970; the Dome Cookbook and Zome Primer spell the name “Berry Hickman”). Both appear in the Dome Cookbook (1968) as active collaborators before Zomeworks existed — Hickman planning a 26’ dome at Manera Nueva, Heinz “working on new designs at Drop City.” Skylid co-developers per Sunspots: David Boyd and Dick Henry (“brought to present state by” them and Baer). Zome Primer (1970) additionally credits Otto Jung (Design Industries, 6-zone aluminum joint), Jim Welty and Robert Ford (Ford residence framework), Ken Leonard (layout), and Holly Baer (editorial assistance). Zomeworks staff: David Harrison (VP, 12+ years), Tim James (installer), Bill Mingenbach (ceiling tanks), Joe Minella (boogie valves), Shawn Buckley (di-thermal walls), Bristol Stickney (heated-vs-unheated plates), Jesse Rodefer (Cool Cell spokesman). Current leadership per Wikipedia (uncited there; edited 2026-07-06 by an account named “JoseBaer”): sole owner Benjamin Rodefer (Corrales-raised, former NM state representative and musician — his own bio lists Jesse Rodefer as a musical collaborator, a lead on the long-unresolved relationship question, though not proof of family ties), Director Mike Elliston (whose own c.1980 drum-door passive solar house, updated 1991 to plastic barrels, appears in Baer’s 2009 AIA survey), VP David Nevin. NMSEA co-founders: Peter Van Dresser and Keith Haggard (1972; the obituary’s “Keith” is confirmed correct — NMSEA’s own history, the ASES regional history, and a 1977 High Country News item all name Keith Haggard, a distinct person from Ken Haggard of Cal Poly whom earlier passes of this KB conflated him with). ISES: served on board of directors, US Section of the International Solar Energy Society. Solar Fools: Bruce W. Davis, Karen Terry. State researcher: Mark Chalom (NSRC 2006).

Worldview

Baer was anti-subsidy, anti-certification, and contemptuous of institutional solar advocacy. From Sunmen (2004): “One can no more subsidize the sun than heat it up.” He described the Energy Foundation as “a tow truck with no tow chain, just a bigger horn to increase alarm.” He rejected green building point systems, Earth Day, and “tax credit engineers who need no forklifts, hammers, shovels or cement truck.”

His preferred instrument was the infrared scanner: “this tool, which measures the temperature of a surface instantly by merely pointing at it, leaves a stream of questions for its user that becomes a Sunman’s education.” His preferred model for adoption was epidemiological: “Let us hope we can begin a new epidemic of passive design. Surely the passive solar virus has mutated and the epidemic will reach larger populations.”

The archive’s central claim — that passive thermal systems based on water, sky radiation, and radiant comfort can do all the cooling and most of the heating in climates like Albuquerque — was Baer’s life’s work. It was independently validated by Chalom’s state field study (2006), Davis’s built practice (1975–2017), and Kayatekin’s academic paper (2025), but never adopted at scale. See Why hasn’t passive thermal scaled?

Unpublished / translated works

Two Baer essay titles not otherwise catalogued appear in Clément Gaillard’s French anthology An Anthology for Understanding Low-Tech (T&P Work Unit, afterword by Philippe Bihouix), which includes their first French translations:

“Basic Technologies”
“The Paradox of the Clothesline”

Both emphasize “free services provided by the climate” — aligned with the anti-subsidy, passive-first worldview in Sunmen (2004).