concepts · updated 2026-07-19
David A. Bainbridge
confidence: medium volatility: cold verified: 2026-07-19fresh
David A. Bainbridge is a passive-solar practitioner and author who worked in Steve Baer's Living Systems design circle in the 1970s, wrote 'A Water Wall Solar Design Manual' (1981, reissued 2005), and co-authored two books with Ken Haggard. Received the American Solar Energy Society's Passive Solar Pioneer Award in 2004.
Author, practitioner, and — by his own account — a member of Steve Baer’s Living Systems design group in the 1970s, where he learned water-wall passive solar construction directly from Baer’s circle and eventually installed what he describes as the first house with a rectangular steel water tank for thermal mass.
Water wall practice
Author of A Water Wall Solar Design Manual (1981; reissued 2005 covering the first four chapters), a practitioner’s guide and history of water-wall thermal mass in passive solar buildings. Credits Baer’s 1971/72 Corrales house as the catalyzing event for a broader wave of 1970s–80s water-wall practitioners, several of whom — Timothy Maloney, Ken Haggard, Polly Cooper — are otherwise thinly documented elsewhere in this archive. See Evolution of the thermal vision for how this fits the broader arc.
Recognition and later work
Received the American Solar Energy Society’s Passive Solar Pioneer Award in 2004 — the award that prompted him to revisit and reissue the water-wall manual in 2005. Co-authored two books with Ken Haggard: Passive Solar Architecture: Heating, Cooling, Ventilation, Daylighting and More Using Natural Flows, and the Passive Solar Architecture Pocket Reference (with Haggard and Rachel Aljilani) — both already cited in this archive’s Ken Haggard page before this record existed for Bainbridge himself.
Unknown
Birth date, formal education, and current status are not documented in this archive. Based in San Diego as of the 2005 manual reissue.