As much as I love big walls of windows, I suspect Roland is on the right track. Optimal passive-solar design would likely involve one window for a view combined with multiple passive-solar wall panels for cold-weather heating.

And I'm glad he passed on that in-depth writeup, too, because my understanding of passive-solar wall panels was seriously old-school. The angled fins make a lot of sense (for geeky reasons explained in depth at the website above), as does the vertical orientation and the use of UV-protected twin-wall polycarbonate sheets instead of glass.

The only problem is that the in-depth design starts to make this look like a project that wouldn't get done before serious cold weather hits. So I did some googling and found this panel that includes the angled fins, at least, if not some of the other features. We'll have to digest on it a little and decide whether the high price tag is worth getting the unit installed this year.