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people · updated 2026-10-18

Dave Harrison

confidence: high volatility: cold verified: 2026-11-04fresh

Zomeworks Vice President (12+ years) and engineer-inventor. Held three patents (Beadwall, Integral Roof Cooling Container, and co-invented passive ventilation). Designed Frank's House / Beadwall in Placitas, NM (1980). Designed the Double Play Container (2010–2012) and provided the first detailed as-built documentation in October 2026.

Zomeworks engineer and inventor. Held three patents relevant to the archive:

US 3,903,665 (filed 1973, granted 1975) — Beadwall (“Heat energy transmission control panel”). Assigned personally (not Zomeworks) — Harrison owned the invention; Zomeworks commercialized it. Polystyrene beads pneumatically blown between window panes by an ordinary vacuum cleaner. Sunspots (Ch. 6.5):

“Such elegant inventions as the beadwall indicate that the healthy response of architecture to increasing energy costs may be increased use of glass in building walls rather than a retreat to underground buildings.”

Sunspots also points readers to “Harrison’s forthcoming article in Solar Energy.”

US 5,609,200 (filed 1994, granted 1997) — Integral Roof Cooling Container. Assigned to Zomeworks Corp. Water-filled containers rotationally molded directly onto metal roof sections; cools by night-sky radiation; no separate support structure. Lapsed 2001 — one year before the Cool Cell brochure. Bridges the battery cabinet patents and the Cool Cell.

US 5,603,656 (1997) — Passive Ventilation Device and Method. Co-invented with Steve Baer; the only Baer patent with a co-inventor in the battery-cabinet series. Hydrogen gas venting from battery cabinets using the buoyancy of the hydrogen itself. (The companion patent US 5,660,587, Passive Ventilation System and Method, lists Baer alone.)

Described in Baer’s 2004 “Dear Shareholders” letter as “Vice President of Zomeworks and long time independent contractor,” a believer in the strong local Albuquerque market for the Double Play system: “I’ve worked with this and Cool Cell technology for over 12 years and know it is reliable and really works. We’ve had very few problems with our Cool Cells. It is time to go beyond conditioned cabinets and move into architecture.” See Dear shareholders.

Designed Frank’s House / Beadwall in Placitas, NM (1980), and the Monte Vista School Greenhouse, Albuquerque (1973) — both in the 2009 AIA passive solar slideshow; see Baer AIA passive solar slideshow. The Monte Vista Beadwall Greenhouse is also photographed in Sunspots (filling and emptying).

Double Play Container (2010–2026)

Harrison designed the Double Play Container — an 8’ × 20’ “high boy” cargo container retrofitted with a Double Play passive heating and cooling system. His original design drawings span 2010–2012; the container was built and commissioned approximately 2012–2013. After the container left the Zomeworks yard, Harrison had “little to no further involvement.”

In October 2026, Harrison revisited the container, took notes, and recovered the original drawings from an old thumb drive. He reworked sheets 3–7 to reflect the as-built condition, producing a 10-sheet drawing set covering south elevation, roof plan, structural cross-section, roof framing, plumbing schematics, bladder detail, absorber modification, and off-grid electrical wiring. He also wrote a system description and seasonal conversion procedure.

Harrison’s 2026 commentary on performance: cooling should be “pretty easy in Santa Fe,” but heating may require glazing over the absorbers because wind and cold drag heat away. His primary concern is overheating during warm sunny weather — adjustable shading would help. He offered to advise on reinstallation and expressed interest in monitoring and publishing performance data.

See also