EDITOR'S NOTE: A photograph of Reynolds at the Cottage Restaurant is available on request. See a thumbnail image of the JPEG version on the Web at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uocomm/media/thumbs/john_reynolds_s.jpg. Then, call the UO Office of Communications, (541) 346-3134, for the required password to download the 300 DPI full-size image (1346x2000 pixels; 1.7 MB; about 15 minutes on a 28.8 modem) or to request a hard copy of the photo. EUGENE, Ore.--University of Oregon professor John Reynolds has a puzzled look as he stands in front of the Emerald Public Utility District (EPUD) corporate office near Eugene, Ore. Something isn't quite right about the windows on the second floor. He gazes at the windows for several minutes before he sees it--the carefully constructed trellises are now bare of the Virginia creepers he prescribed as a key element in cooling the interior of the building. Striped awnings have replaced the plants. "That's how buildings evolve," he says with a wry smile. "No matter how good the design, it has to satisfy the users, or they'll make changes." Reynolds, an award-winning designer who also is a gifted teacher, won the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture's 1998 Distinguished Professor Award. Reynolds will ease into retirement next fall, leaving behind a rich legacy of UO architecture students who learned from and, in some cases, participated in his pioneering studies of the passive solar heating and cooling of buildings. The EPUD building, for example, uses daylighting, solar heating and an innovative system that uses chilled night-time air to flush heat accumulated the day before from the building. With or without awnings, the EPUD corporate office building is a model of solar conservation. The sophisticated design by Reynolds and UO colleague Virginia Cartwright won numerous awards and, on the whole, pleased its conservation-minded client. The building is a concrete example that EPUD, a young, progressive public utility company, holds conservation as one of its highest goals. Just 10 miles down the freeway from the EPUD building stands the Cottage Restaurant, another solar building Reynolds helped design. The building served as the proving ground for many of the innovations he used later at EPUD. South-facing glass walls heat both the EPUD and the Cottage Restaurant buildings. Both store solar energy in similar ways--concrete floors and barrels of water hold the heat at the Cottage, while the EPUD building saves solar energy in structural beams and concrete ceiling slabs. Both buildings are cooled by bringing night-time air inside to flush away the accumulated heat of the previous day. And, of course, there are the plants. Magnificent mature grape vines help lower daytime temperatures inside the Cottage, while Virginia creepers still shade the lower floors at EPUD. "The Cottage represented the best in solar design when it was built in 1981," according to Ron Kellett, a UO associate professor of architecture who worked with Reynolds on the Cottage. "It was a place you could use to show people how passive heating, cooling and daylighting works," Kellett explains. "John liked to take passive design principles and draw attention to them in ways that uniquely fit the needs and character of a building." The building was an ideal teaching lab, Kellett says. Reynolds' influence on former students and colleagues is formidable. "He starts things," says Frank Vignola, a senior researcher in the UO physics department, "and then he moves aside and lets others take over the projects." One of those projects--the UO Solar Radiation Monitoring Lab--is collecting data on solar resources in the Northwest. Reynolds says the information could prove invaluable when the cost of fossil fuel becomes prohibitive for heating and cooling buildings in the region. Ironically, Reynolds' interest in the use of passive solar energy grew, not from his work as a teacher, but from a 1968 proposal by the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) to build a nuclear power plant near Eugene. "I went to a hearing and got so angry at the condescending way EWEB officials dealt with the people who objected to the nuclear plant, that I found the local opponents and asked, 'Where do I sign up?'" Reynolds recalls. He not only signed up, he ran for the board and served for four years as the utility's most vocal opponent of nuclear power--and the only one then serving on EWEB's board of directors. "When the Mideast oil embargo hit in 1973, I realized I needed to offer some realistic alternatives to nuclear power," Reynolds explains. "The most feasible alternative turned out to be conservation, but they weren't buying that idea back then. The next best thing was solar energy." Eventually, the EWEB board came around to Reynolds' point of view on nuclear energy and, with encouragement from the Jimmy Carter administration, began offering customers incentives to use solar energy. Solar energy isn't the only field where Reynolds has had a huge impact. He's the co-author of the eighth edition of the definitive textbook on "Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings," used in architecture classes around the nation. In 1997, the American Solar Energy Society recognized Reynolds' impact on the field of passive solar architecture with its highest honor, the Passive Pioneer Award. Reynolds is grateful he won't leave teaching behind right away. Under an early retirement plan available to state employees, he'll be able to devote 600 hours to his students next year. "The one thing that scares me about retirement is that I'll only spend a third of my time with students," he says. "The upside is I'll have more time to write." -30- #F-6070/Local,OreDailies,ORBUS,ARCH,HigherEd,Special