An original solar-based system to dissipate and capture heat for building climatization has been designed, built and tested. Starting with a brief description of the system, the theoretical model and the tests performed are presented in this paper. Experimental results in the real system, obtained during summer 1999, showed that an average of 250 W m(-2) may be dissipated. The possibility of producing heat energy by increasing the temperature of a water mass flow and the passive effect of the system to reduce the incoming thermal load in the building have also been considered.