Over the next decade, global warming will cause temperatures to rise, exacerbating the energy crisis. The elderly population in Italy will be particularly vulnerable to these effects. Southern Italy, with its warm climate and aging buildings, requires sustainable and adaptable solutions to enhance the energy efficiency of residential buildings. Senior citizens from many Italian urban areas will not be able to leave their homes during the summer days. Staying at home will raise the domestic energy consumption of Italian families, and many households will be forced to adopt solutions that do not utilize energy powered sources to ensure their domestic thermal comfort. In this scenario, the building sector will transform as the EU collaborates to achieve the goal of being climate-neutral by 2050. Building renovation is strategic because it will reduce energy costs and urban heat island effects and indirectly change energy usage habits.
Brease is an easy-breezy way of improving the energy efficiency of buildings.
It offers facade renovation to condominiums that want to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. Brease operates by installing vertical greenery shading systems in an easy and quick way aiming to accelerate the Italian house system transition to greener. For this reason, its technical and organizational solutions are designed to be highly adaptable to local contexts and ensure its replication.
Brease, which is made of ceramic modules and easily mounted on the wall with a metal structure, acts as a shading panel that prevents direct sunlight from entering the house and allows the refreshed cool air to enter through the balcony and windows.
The angle of the modules can be adapted to the location of the building and the sunlight, as well as their special arrangement in front of the windows and balconies. Insulation is provided by the natural properties of the clay and the gaps in the bricks. These air gaps encourage the formation of natural ventilation (chimney effect) and slow down the heat exchange between spaces at different temperatures.
The product offers long-term use thanks to its modular and easy-to-maintain components. The material used in the manufacturing of the modules is clay, which is relatively low-impact and requires very little processing once extracted. Plus, waste clay bricks can be recycled into grain particle sizes and used as sand replacement in concrete, reintroducing waste products into the construction industrial chain.
The panels become a vertical garden over time with the help of climbing plants, thus contributing to the shading and cooling. Over time, the plants that cover the facade not only cool the air inside the house units, but also the surrounding air, helping to reduce the heat island effect of the city, benefiting the neighborhood.