Category: Sun Protection

Brise soleil for more pleasant working conditions

There are a number of ways in which you might secure the energy usage of your work building, and business as a whole. Alongside the standard advice of low-energy bulbs, paperless offices and good insulation, there are factors to bear in mind that will have a more significant impact on your long-term energy usage. As energy prices rise in the future due to peak oil and, quite possibly, energy insecurity and issues of supply, these will become more valuable. The brise soleil and glass louvres – which can be part of the initial building design or retro-fitted at a later date – will become more common sights as businesses try to reduce their energy consumption. In particular, external louvres can make the most of the sunlight that reaches your windows, whilst at the same time ensuring that it does not overheat the room. This would make for both an uncomfortable office environment and increased costs, as it entails the use of air conditioning.

The way each of these architectural features work is generally the same. In each case, they are structures – either fixed or movable – that regulate the sunlight levels reaching your windows. Especially in modern developments, the windows tend to be large and can cover most of the building’s exterior, so this is no trivial matter. The genius of the brise soleil and external louvres is that they do two things – making the most of existing sunlight but not allowing it to overheat the premises. They do this by the angling of the slats or other structures, which allows low-angle winter sun (or sun at the beginning and end of the day) through, but stops the high-angle summer and midday sun. Energy use and heat absorption may be further modified by having moving slats to customise the louvres to the climate conditions, and also by integrating PV (photovoltaic) cells into them to allow them to generate electricity whilst simultaneously lowering your power consumption.

The brise soleil and glass louvres are therefore important developments for both energy efficiency and security, and a good working environment. External louvres are one of a number of measures that can be adopted to lower the amount of energy you use, thereby decreasing both your energy budget and your environmental footprint. This makes for more sustainable businesses and greater corporate responsibility, as well as any intrinsic good.

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Glass louvres mean that shading systems can be an aesthetic solution

The last thing you want to have to install on a building are heavy blinds and sunshades. While too much sunlight might be destructive both to fabrics, wall surfaces and art objects, not to mention human skin, a room which lets in no natural light tends to be dark. The answer is to install external louvres that are elegant and functional and effectively protect valuable objects and décor from sun damage. Incorporating brise soleil in your shading system makes for optimal protection and hence sustainability. What’s more, the ready availability of glass louvres from specialist suppliers means that your shades can be aesthetic as well as practical.

Putting ugly additions on the exterior of a building can be controversial with neighbours, local councils and – if the building receives customers or clients – visitors. You need not worry about ruining extant architecture by erecting stylish louvres, however. They are an very aesthetic choice, as well as having substantial environmental benefits. Providers supply louvres engineered to meet a vast range of requirements. As they can be made from glass, your shades can be silk-screened, tailor cut, etched, coloured or coated according to your requirements. Neither do your louvres have to be immovable – they can also be installed in motorised, movable positions. Louvres are more than just an add-on. With a great range of design available, more and more architects are integrating louvres into buildings.

The question of the robustness of your shading system is worth considering. Extra resilient shading systems made from aluminium and stainless steel will withstand high winds and loads of snow. Due to their lightweight frames, vibration is also reduced. Whatever the façade of the building in question, whether commercial, public, old or new, a choice of fixings and colour coatings can be chosen from in order to harmonise shading systems with their immediate surrounds.

Most importantly, a good quality shading system will protect the longevity of objects such as valuable works of art, save costs on air conditioning, reduce glare and increase privacy. First and foremost direct sunlight is prevented from entering a building. Significantly, direct sunlight is the chief cause of heat gain and as shading systems help keep things cool, you’ll reduce your air conditioning bill. Furthermore the environment will benefit, as ozone-depleting gases produced by air conditioning units will be correspondingly decreased.

To sum up, brise soleil enables natural ventilation to be a workable option without the loss of privacy or risk of light damage. External louvres are an efficient protective measure, and minimise running costs. glass louvres combine function with style. If you are environmentally conscious when it comes to architecture and light damage, turn to a comprehensive shading system solution.

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External louvres are an effective solution to temperature control

If you work in a modern office then you probably have big, expansive windows that give the room an airy, open feel and let in plenty of sunlight. This has a number of advantages. For starters, you decrease lighting bills – and sunlight is far preferable than electric lights. It’s brighter, and the mixture of wavelengths is (by definition) more ‘natural’, meaning that workers generally feel better in the sun than under strip lights. It also decreases heating bills. The problem comes when it’s summer, and the office can overheat. Then, you have a different problem, since you have to shell out money you saved on heating on new air conditioning. Another solution is to retrofit a brise soleil, or glass louvres. external louvres can be an effective way of having the best of both worlds – allowing the sun to heat your premises in the winter, but not overheating them in the summer.

There are a number of variants on the concept, and the exact version will depend on your circumstances – your climate, for starters, but also where your building is positioned and which way it faces. Some louvres are movable, and can be controlled from minute-to-minute to fit to conditions on the day. Others are fixed, though these can still be extremely effective. One of the most simple but helpful sorts is a ‘shelf’ which admits low-angle winter sun, or light at the beginning of the day when the sun is still low in the sky. In the summer, or the middle of the day, when the sun tends to be at a steeper angle, the shelf blocks its light from the windows.

The brise soleil – French for ‘sun breaker’ – is a permanent sun block that can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it is hardly anything more than a horizontal surface projecting from the side of the building. On other occasions they are more sophisticated, perhaps being slatted to admit a proportion of the sun, or only sun at certain times of day or year. These, along with glass louvres (which can be used in conjunction with a sun breaker), are handy solutions to managing sunlight, which can result in great savings for your business. If this is something that your office finds problematic, then external louvres might be something to look into.

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How constructions are protected with a brise soleil

When I first started out in the construction trade, I found the more technical aspects of the industry rather confusing.  Where construction meets architecture, it all gets a bit complex, apparently! Everyday parlance at work demanded, however, that I was conversant with certain words – for example, I needed to know my brise soleil from my aluminium curtain and external louvre.  I was hoping to learn a great deal on the job but pretty soon I realised that I would only ever get ahead if I spent some evenings teaching myself until I really knew what I was talking about in all things construction.

The word brise soleil, I found, is from the French for ‘sun breaker’ which pretty much explains its purpose.  Architecturally, brise soleil describes a number of sun-shading techniques – and there can be more varieties of them than you might think.  A brise can be a patterned concrete wall, or a more elaborate creation like the one devised by Santiago Calatrava for the Milwaukee Art Museum.  They are not always ornate or creative, though.  More often, it will be a horizontal projection from the sun facing side of a building.  Buildings with large amounts of glass can overheat seriously during the summer moths, and a brise soleil is the ideal way to stop this from happening.

External louvres can be incorporated into a brise soleil to make sure it offers protection from sun which falls from a higher angle, while also allowing winter sun in, making the most of the passive solar heating potential of the building.  An aluminium curtain is also a method of protecting buildings from the weather – it is a kind of curtain wall which provides a non-structural covering of a building, but one which protects it from air and water infiltration, as well as the effects of the wind.  Originally, curtain walls were made of steel, but they tend to be constructed with aluminium these days.  The aluminium frame can be infilled with glass to create an more attractive building, which lets in a decent amount of natural light.

Although I now know that an external louvre can be fitted to a brise soleil to minimise exposure to direct sunlight, and an aluminium curtain provides a non-structural outer covering, I still feel rather out of my depth when discussing the finer points of these structures with the skilled architects who create them.  The more I looked into the subject, the more I came to realise why these professionals need to study for seven years!

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