Dominic Michaelis is an English architect and inventor.

Biography

Born in 1938 in England, Michaelis studied architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 and engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 at Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

. His thesis, written in 1964 was about a solar house and a floating solar village. He continued at Cornell studying for an M.Sc. in architectural structures and town planning.

In 1972 Michaelis created the first flying solar balloon, and two years later had an improved and larger balloon cross the channel.

In 1974 Michaelis opened a consulting company for solar houses and office buildings, one of which received the RIBA award

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

. He consulted for many known solar heated or cooled projects around the world, building neighborhoods and structures, in Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

, Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Marrakech

Marrakech

Marrakech or Marrakesh , known as the "Ochre city", is the most important former imperial city in Morocco's history...

, Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 and Riyadh

Riyadh

Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5,254,560 people, and the urban center of a...

.

In 2002 he invented the 'Energy Island' following a Call for Ideas by OTEC Association, a proposal for an offshore platform that would employ various techniques to generate renewable energy. His son Alex Michaelis

Alex Michaelis

Alex Michaelis is an architect based in London, England. He gained notoriety in 2005 for building his own residence underground, using green building techniques.-External links:* - article in The Guardian, February 13, 2006....

continues his father's solar projects, and particularly the energy island idea.

External links

• About the Energy Island company founder
• Dominic Michaelis's solar balloons
• Energy Island project with Southampton University, lead by Dominic Michaelis.
• Michaelis' solar cooking invention the 'Prometheus' solar cooker.