Brise soleil

Brise soleil, sometimes brise-soleil (French: [bʁiz sɔlɛj]; lit. '"sun breaker"'), is an architectural feature of a building that reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight.^[1] The system allows low-level sun to enter a building in the mornings, evenings and during winter but cuts out direct light during summer.^[2]

A basic brise soleil at the Charles Wells Brewery for Wells & Co. 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.

Architecture

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^[3] to the elaborate wing-like mechanism devised by Santiago Calatrava for the Milwaukee Art Museum^[4] or the mechanical, pattern-creating devices of the Institut du Monde Arabe by Jean Nouvel.^[5]

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.^[6]

Gallery

• 
  Millennium Point, Birmingham, UK
• 
  City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia: brise soleil at the L'Hemisfèric
• 
  The movable Burke brise soleil on the Quadracci Pavilion of the Milwaukee Art Museum closes at sunset.
• 
  Gustavo Capanema Palace in Rio de Janeiro
• 
  Detail of north facade of Gustavo Capanema Palace
• 
  The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
• 
  Geosciences Institute of Unicamp (Campinas, Brazil)
• 
  The New York Times Building by Renzo Piano
• 
  Curutchet House by Le Corbusier, inside view

See also

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