What if buildings could adapt to the seasons as nature does?

Inspired by studies on the effect of color on a building's temperature, Joe Doucet created a novel formulation specifically for exterior paint that allows it to change color from a lighter tone in the summer months to a darker tone in the winter months to passively improve any structure’s energy efficiency.  

In summer, a white house can be ~12ºF cooler internally than a black house, while in winter a black house can be ~7ºF warmer internally, with the opposite closely mirroring this result. According to research, it takes approximately 3% of total energy cost to raise or lower the internal temperature of a structure by 1ºF/0.5ºC*. By shifting with the seasons, color passively reduces the energy needed to heat and cool a building by up to 25%.

The challenge was to formulate a stable, durable exterior paint that could change color passively without requiring a physical repaint of an exterior.  The formulation developed has a dark grey color below 77ºF/25ºC and changes almost instantly to white at temperatures above that. The seasonally adjusting paint can also be tinted in any color, so for example, one could have a light blue in spring/summer and navy blue in fall/winter.

Not only can homeowners benefit, but its use on larger structures such as schools, factories and any other structure or superstructure where heat and cold play a role in the internal environment may be helped by such a product.