PRODUCT NEWS
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The cool story of a 3D printed brick
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19 Mar 2015 . BY Jason Holland |
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Cool Brick wall assembly / Emerging Objects |
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An air cooling technique that was used for millennia before the advent of refrigeration has been updated for a new audience thanks to 3D printing.
Emerging Object’s ‘Cool Brick’ masonry system uses evaporative cooling – the addition of water vapour into air, which causes a lowering of the temperature of the air. The system can be used in desert environments to build walls that passively cool interiors.
The cooling technique has been in evidence throughout history, with frescoes from as early as around 2500 BC showing slaves fanning jars of water to cool rooms.
According to the Oakland-based company, each 3D printed porous ceramic brick set in mortar “absorbs water like a sponge and is designed as a three dimensional lattice that allows air to pass through the wall”. As air moves through the 3D printed brick, the water that is held in the micro-pores of the ceramic evaporates, bringing cool air into an interior environment, and lowering the temperature.
The bricks are modular and interlocking, and can be stacked together to make a screen. The 3D lattice creates a strong bond when set in mortar. The shape of the brick also creates a shaded surface on the wall to keep a large percentage of the wall’s surface cool and protected from the sun to improve the wall’s performance, according to Emerging Objects.
The Cool Brick project was sponsored by Omaha, Nebraska-based Tethon 3D, and can be viewed at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design until 19 April.
Emerging Objects was co-founded by Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael, who also led the University of California, Berkeley-project ‘Bloom’, which was created to demonstrate the architectural potential of 3D printing.
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