Colin Porteous’s Kerr MacGregor Award Statement

An architect (since 1966), my interest in energy-efficient design moved from practice to in-depth research as a mature student in 1981; the following year joining the Scottish Solar Energy Group (SSEG) and becoming active in the wider international solar community. A mechanical engineer at Napier in Edinburgh, Kerr MacGregor, had founded SSEG circa 1980 and wowed delegates at the 1981 International Solar Energy Congress in Brighton by showing that “North is best” (i.e. northern latitudes) for solar displacement of space heating; by 1984 he launched the first of a long-running biennial series of ‘North Sun’ international conferences, and also to a parallel series of Eurosun conferences, after 1998. 

I came to know Kerr well as friend and colleague over the years, both in terms of organising numerous events and in securing cooperation between our respective institutions – Napier University for Kerr, Mackintosh School of Architecture in my case. For example, the 1987 ‘Heatfest’ community-led ideas competition to solar-retrofit homes suffering from acute fuel poverty led to a partly European-funded ‘Solar Demonstration Project’, with bespoke solar air collectors designed by Kerr complementing passive solar features.  This led in turn to the founding of the Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU) in late 1993, a year after the notable Rio Earth Summit. By 2005 I had authored a book with Kerr, ‘Solar Architecture in Cool Climates’, which relied heavily on SSEG activities for source material.  Six years later, Kerr’s sudden death came as a blow to all who knew him in the solar firmament.

Paradoxically, as active SSEG membership dwindled in the ensuing years while solar commerce accelerated, SEDA has offered a strategic new home as SEDA Solar for a tangible continuation of what Kerr began. I had helped to organise the first memorial award for Kerr (specifically emphasising solar innovation) within the Scottish Renewables annual awards in 2013, followed by several for students at annual solar conferences in Edinburgh – hence the desire by SEDA Solar to continue this tribute, and hence the reason for my personal sponsorship.