Steve Baer

American inventor and passive-solar pioneer (born 1938), best known for developing and popularizing the zome — a polyhedral structure related to the geodesic dome — and for practical solar-energy inventions like the drum wall.

Baer emerged from the Drop City milieu of the 1960s, where he adapted Fuller's dome geometry into the zome (a portmanteau of "dome" and "zonohedron") built from angular, salvage-friendly panels. He founded Zomeworks, took numerous solar patents, wrote Dome Cookbook and Sunspots, and served on the board of the International Solar Energy Society — carrying the owner-builder ethos into commercial passive-solar design.

Role in Fuller's orbit

Baer is a central figure of the countercultural dome movement that took Fuller's geometry into the desert and the hands of owner-builders. He worked alongside Clark Richert at Drop City and turned Fuller-derived structural geometry toward passive-solar living.

See Also

• Zome Primer — primer on the zome geometry Baer originated

• Sunspots — Baer's own book of solar and geometric explorations

• Clark Richert — Drop City collaborator

• David Johnston (builder) \x{2014} passive-solar/green-building advocate in the same lineage

• David Kruschke — fellow dome-movement author

• Drop City — where he developed the zome

• Zomeworks — the passive-solar company he founded

• Lloyd Kahn — Domebook author and fellow dome-movement figure

• The Dome Builder's Handbook (The Dome Builder's Handbook) — related work

• We Are All Astronauts (We Are All Astronauts) — related work

• John Prenis (John Prenis) — related figure

Sources

• Steve Baer (source reference) — Zotero People collection (Wikipedia entry)