I believe Wabasha is a Warehouse (Mini-Storage?)

End-O-Line is a RR Museum.

http://www.endoline.com/site/index.php

Speaking as a San Franciscan, that sounds pretty nice.


That would make it a "passive solar design", yes.

The general goal of sawtooth design was to let in lots of light, but NOT lots of solar load, as often the buildings did not have big ventilation available. Usually they were 1-storey and quite square and not necessarily with a lot of doors or windows. Hence, aiming the windows north, so they got atmospheric bounce lighting (and a lot more of it on a cloudy day).

On the other hand, turning around the sawtooth design specifically to create solar load is an innovative idea worthy of modern adoption. You would probably be using high-thermal-mass construction(read: concrete, and insulation on the outside) to absorb and hold the solar heat. And you'd need a way to sluff off the summer sun. I've thought that thought, as a way to present a sawtooth building to visitors for historic reasons, yet have it be passive solar.

As a San Franciscan and an architect who works in a building with a northwest facing sawtooth roof, I can tell you the idea of that roundhouse is baked. So was everything inside most likely. In the building where I teach, the slight western exposure heats the building up way too much in the afternoon.

It does not take much solar exposure (especially from the roof) to adequately heat an interior space, even a drafty one. This roof was probably designed for daylighting and possibly structural reasons. looking more carefully at the roundhouse, it is possible that the windows were much smaller than typical for sawtooth roofs, but I'd bet many of the windows were whitewashed or tarred over while the building was still young. Skylights are also excellent at radiating indoor heat into space when its dark outside. There are no widows on the vertical back wall, where they are normally. There are reasons why we put more windows on walls than on roofs. The engineers that designed this building may have innovated too much.

There may be a structural reason for the roof form. It might have been designed as a "folded plate" structure that gains strength from its form. The folded roof plates can act simultaneously as vaults and beams to span large distances with less material. https://www.google.com/search?q=folded+plate+roof&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=ikF&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rQUfUeqtLKWUiQKA2ID4Cw&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=760

As far as intentionally scooping up sunlight from the roof for the sake of heating, this is obviously what greenhouses do. It takes a lot of whitewash, shading, and venting to regulate the inside temperature so they don't turn into solar ovens, and these factors are adjusted often over the course of the year, and sometimes the day, to keep the tomatoes happy.

In buildings for people, well-designed passive systems also rely upon shading, thermal mass, and ventilation to maintain human comfort, but the solar exposure thing is easy to overdo. It is important to be able to store the excess heat for when it is really needed. Trombe walls use over-exposure to the sun to collect heat that can be stored for use over night and on darker days, or to create a draft to encourage cooling. https://www.google.com/search?q=folded+plate+roof&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=ikF&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rQUfUeqtLKWUiQKA2ID4Cw&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=760#hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=6Pa&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=trombe+wall&oq=trombe+wall&gs_l=img.3..0l3j0i24l7.60371.62294.0.62526.11.9.0.2.2.0.192.1161.2j7.9.0...0.0...1c.1.4.img.-QLtcu7ZNng&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42661473,d.cGE&fp=87de34a513e01e47&biw=1440&bih=760

One now gone since this 2013 thread:

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... demolished



Much more at the (non-paywall) link.