cotechdesign under the inspired leadership of architect, Walter Scott Perry has been involved in green, currently referred to as sustainable thinking and design for over 40 years, having been a leader and pioneer in the passive solar design movement incubated in Santa Fe, NM and birthed by the oil embargo crisis of 1972.Our collaborative approach has been developed over many years in order to seamlessly integrate design with construction and material systems research, as well as encourage professional and political participation to solve problems more quickly and effectively.Ecotechdesign pioneered the green team design approach during the 1990’s.The 4 subgroups are: ecotechdesign, ecotechbuild, ecotechr+d, ecotech consult.The practice is a diverse and full-service design collaborative that examines and explores practical ways to integrate client needs, project cost limitations, physical construction, energy conservation opportunities and innovation with local climate and living systems in a timely and responsive way. It embraces the philosophy that all things are inter-connected and merely exist at different levels of perception and reality, some large and some small, some visible and some hard to see. Embracing a whole systems thinking approach to problem solving, it explores patterns at all scales from macro to micro to explore and develop ways to integrate natural and man-made materials and systems. The design process is a problem-solving approach that considers design, engineering and space-making as an organic process of investigation, discovery and collaboration. This results in a practical and functional, yet aesthetically balanced and responsive, organic architecture.Using a building kit approach that utilizes plug-in components, ecotechdesign incorporates a hybrid design approach. Like the Prius hybrid automobile design, it combines different building technologies and energy systems to maximize energy, spatial and cost efficiencies that result in practical solutions while achieving substantial architectural variety and flexibility. Ecotechdesign explores the use of conventional building systems and materials combined with innovative solutions developed by its subgroup ecotechr+d that investigates new ways of combining old materials to solve new problems. Solarshade which was used to cool hybridhouse is a good example of the innovative use of low-cost and readily available materials and systems to passively cool a building.