We hear a lot about insulation in a building and how to keep the warm in – especially here in the UK where even the summer months can get chilly from time to time! But architects and builders also have another problem in other parts of the world – how to keep the buildings that they create from overheating and becoming too warm.
When you look at the buildings in Greece, it is clear that they are much more used to the hot weather than we are – their buildings are well designed for keeping cool, with hard flooring (often stone, not a carpet in sight) and white painted buildings to reflect the sun back.
Architects designing modern buildings have also started to use another way of keeping buildings cool – Brise Soleil.
Brise Soleil works by allowing in the low sun in the early morning and evening but blocking the sun in the middle of the day when it is at it’s hottest, which keeps the building at a cooler temperature. As well as being great at keeping buildings cool, Brise Soleil also looks fantastic – many more modern building designers have utilised it in a creative and attractive way to create buildings that resemble works of art as well as being cool and functional.
Some well-known buildings that use Brise soleil include:
Hachette Livre Headquarters in France
Robotics and Mechatronics Centre in Germany
Proyecto Robel in the Netherlands
When you look at these three completely different yet modern and innovative buildings, you can really see how useful and versatile Brise soleil is.