SOLAR MASONRY UNIT
Alexander Keller
Providence, Rhode Island

In an age of high-performance glass skins and pollution-eating concrete, it was only a matter of time before someone put the fusty old brick to work. Alexander Keller’s Solar Masonry Units convert the sun’s energy to electricity that can power laptops, washing machines, and even electric cars. “We are surrounded by brick surfaces and other building envelopes that have vast potential to be energy collectors,” says the 23-year-old graduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design. “Solar Masonry Units allow our cities to be built directly from the material that is powering our everyday processes.” Dotted with 32 or 128 PV cells, depending on size, the unit packs an inverter and a battery into a recycled plastic shell. Bricks bind together via interlocking male and female parts—no mortar needed—and strategically placed outlets let people plug in, whether they’re watching TV in their apartments or catching some fresh air, laptop in hand. “Walls of the city should replace power plants,” Keller says. “They should be alive and charged.” They should, as he tells it, lay “the foundation for the future of sustainability.”

http://www.metropolismag.com/nextgen/ng_story.php?article_id=4259