Solar energy pioneer accepts university honour

Awarded on Thursday 10 July, in recognition of Professor Roaf’s extraordinary achievements in climate-friendly energy sources, Susan has become an honorary Doctor of Engineering at Solent just after celebrating 30 years since she designed and built the Oxford Ecohouse. It boasted Britain's very first solar roof, incorporating a photovoltaic array generating electricity, solar hot water panels feeding a large hot water tank and passive solar gain through roof windows to heat the mass of the building walls when required.

Susan moved into the Oxford Ecohouse in 1995, and the solar roof also powered her small electric car. Thirty years on, the UK Government proposed mandating that all new homes should have solar roofs to power homes and electric cars. Solar roofs are now affordable as the costs of panels have plummeted, and homeowners are turning to this technology to cut their own energy bills. There was one solar house in the UK in 1995 and now there are over 1.5m solar homes here.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Susan lived in the hot desert regions of the Middle East as a historian of traditional technologies; as an anthropologist living with nomads in Iran’s Zagros Mountains on two long migrations; and as an archeologist in Iraq excavating sites dating from the Neolithic to the Islamic periods.

Using knowledge from such experiences, Susan designed the Oxford Echohouse to withstand extremes of temperature in preparation for the changing climate ahead. The house continues to be a source of inspiration for architects and engineers, leading the way for sustainable design in the 2000s and resilient design in the following decade. It continues to lead the way in climate-safe design that keeps occupants cool in current and future heatwaves. In 2025, Professor Roaf’s work is more important than ever, as the world collectively addresses climate change.

On the 30th anniversary of these extraordinary achievements, Professor Roaf says:

“On Friday 20 June we celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the first solar roof in the UK, built on my own Oxford Ecohouse in 1995. The whole process of pioneering a completely new feature in the built environment involved a team of some 15 individuals from architecture, engineering, physics and the building industry.

“Progress in design for different future climates involves inter-disciplinary thinking. As an architect I am deeply honoured to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering from a university whose students are taught, from day one, of the importance of connecting disciplines in order to design better buildings and the skills to make that happen.”

An inspiration both in and outside of academia, Susan is the author and editor of 24 books, an Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University, and the recipient of numerous awards for her work as an author, architect and teacher.