Brise soleil

File:Two Point Seven Facades Charles Wells Brewery Brise Soleil.jpg

A basic brise soleil at the Charles Wells Brewery for Wells & Co in Bedford, England. This photo was taken of the south facing elevation at noon in December, a little before the winter solstice. Note how all the windows are in the shade.

Brise soleil, sometimes brise-soleil (; Template:Literal translation), is an architectural feature of a building that reduces its heat gain by deflecting incoming sunlight. The system allows low-level sunlight to enter a building in the mornings, evenings and during winter but cuts out direct light during summer.

Types

Brise-soleil can comprise a variety of permanent sun-shading structures, ranging from the simple patterned concrete walls popularized by Le Corbusier in the Palace of Assembly to the elaborate wing-like mechanism devised by Santiago Calatrava for the Milwaukee Art Museum or the mechanical, pattern-creating devices of the Institut du Monde Arabe by Jean Nouvel.

In the typical form, a horizontal projection extends from the sunside facade of a building. This is most commonly used to prevent facades with a large amount of glass from overheating during the summer. Often louvers are incorporated into the shade to prevent the high-angle summer sun falling on the facade, but also to allow the low-angle winter sun to provide some passive solar heating.

See also

• Awning
• Green building
• List of low-energy building techniques
• Mashrabiya
• Pergola
• Sudare

External links

• Brise soleil at the Milwaukee Art Museum
• [1] (Brise Soleil Commercial Applications)
• British-Yemini Society Influence of climate on window design
• [2] (demonstration of Brise Soleil in commercial applications)
• AD Classics: AD Classics: Palace of the Assembly / Le Corbusier
• Technical possibilities (in German)
• Museum of everyday culture (in German)
• [3] (Further reading on Brise Soleil from a supplier)