Buildings these days are often insulated with composite systems made of plastic. This requires a considerable amount of material and energy, and the plastics themselves are often toxic.
Brick manufacturer Keller AG Ziegelein from Pfungen in the canton of Zurich decided to address this issue by developing a facade system called KISmur, which doesn’t require plastic insulation. It instead consists of a load-bearing brick wall and an insulating shell made of lightweight bricks.
According to Keller AG Ziegelein, its heat-insulating large brick Imbrex 27, which forms the main component of the KISmur facade system, has now received the ECO-1 label, which is awarded by eco-bau in Zurich, an association that brings together federal, cantonal and municipal building authorities to promote environmentally friendly and healthy buildings.
Keller AG Ziegeleien developed KISmur in collaboration with the Lucerne University of Arts and Sciences (HSLU) and other industry partners. According to Dieter Geissbühler from the HSLU Competence Center Typology and Planning in Architecture, which led the project, the innovation lies in the fact that the academic and industry partners considered the system as a whole, factoring in how the different elements such as “brick, mortar, plasterwork and windows behave in relation to the others”.
KISmur was launched in early 2019 and will be used in several projects, including a residential development in Winterthur and a mixed-used development in Zurich-Oerlikon.
According to Keller AG Ziegelein, KISmur is all about long-term durability. “We expect that it will last for 100 years and not the usual 20,” said Urs Huggenberger, head of sales.
