Steve Baer

Steve Baer (October 13, 1938 – May 17, 2024) was an American solar energy inventor and pioneer of passive solar technology. Originally, as a largely self-taught designer and builder, he worked on small projects in Colorado and New Mexico; in time he and Zomeworks, the company he founded, achieved international recognition.

Baer successfully obtained a number of solar-technology patents, contributed to industry publications, and wrote five books (some of which, in part, publicized Zomeworks' design innovations and products). Baer served on the board of directors of the U.S. Section of the International Solar Energy Society, and on the board of the New Mexico Solar Energy Association. He was the founder, chairman of the board, president, and director of research at Zomeworks Corporation. Baer pioneered and helped popularize the use of Zomes, being considered the creator of Zome Architecture.

He was one of the creators of Zometool, a construction set educational toy or device that had evolved from playground climbers and other structures that had been created by Zomeworks.

Early life

Steve Baer was born in Los Angeles. In his teens, while a student at Midland School, he read Lewis Mumford and decided technology needn’t necessarily degrade or complicate people's lives.

Immediately after graduating from Midland School, Baer worked at various jobs, travelled throughout Mexico, and attended Amherst College and UCLA.

In 1960, he joined the U.S. Army, and was stationed in Germany for three years; he also was married in 1960. After discharge from the Army, he and his wife, Holly settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where he worked as a painter and attended Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, studying mathematics. Here he became interested in the possibilities of building innovative structures based on polyhedra (3D solids with flat polygonal faces). Being inspired by reading Farrington Daniels' Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy in addition to working with van Dresser, Baer had become enthused about using solar energy for direct heating of buildings.

Zomes Baer and Ed Heinz experimented with constructing buildings of unusual geometries that they came to call "zomes" or zome architecture, often using heavy sheet metal as the main exterior material. Some of the earliest experiments were carried out in cooperation with members of the intentional communities Drop City and Maniera Nueva. During this period, he met and worked with Day Charhoudi, also a young solar experimenter, who taught him some principles of physics. A 2004 book, Home Work edited by Lloyd Kahn, has a section featuring these building.

Zome house using solar heating built near Corrales, New Mexico, designed by Steve Baer.

Zomeworks Corporation In 1969, Baer founded a company named Zomeworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Barry Hickman and Ed Heinz. Through the years, Baer was president and director of the company, remaining active in the areas of concept, experimentation, testing, and development. The company's stance was to eschew government support, and to function strictly as a business.

Baer began to experiment with practical methods, always seeking to simplify his approach as the experiments proceeded. In spring of 1969, Baer was a key organizer of, and presenter at, an important grassroots conference called Alloy, held near La Luz, New Mexico. Alloy convened Western-U.S. innovators in design and construction fields. According to Andrew Kirk, history professor in the University of Nevada, "...many of the attendees, mostly unknown outside a small circle, were on the cusp of interesting and unlikely careers as proponents of what came to be known as the appropriate-technology and ecological design movements." Kirk deemed most of the key presenters at Alloy to have been influenced by the ideas of Richard Buckminster Fuller

Baer benefited with wider recognition when he established connections with the Whole Earth Catalog (WEC), a product of Stewart Brand and Dick Raymond along with various collaborators. The Fall 1969 edition of the (WEC) carried simply a book review by Baer and a brief description of what Zomeworks was doing at that point. When a detailed article about the Alloy conference was published on five full, large-format pages in the voluminous 1971 WEC edition (distributed far and wide by Random House), Baer and Zomeworks began to gain a reputation among solar enthusiasts in the U.S. In 1995, Baer's design work was included in the Contemporary Developments in Design Science exhibit, at St. John the Divine Cathedral, New York City.