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Lucerne/Pfungen ZH – Researchers at the Lucerne University of Arts and Sciences and brick manufacturer Keller AG Ziegeleien have developed a brick facade that insulates a building without requiring an insulation layer. Their innovative design reduces the need for building services engineering.

Most brick facades require a layer of insulation between the brick and the plasterwork. However, such insulation layers trap humidity, making them problematic for the indoor climate, explains Marvin King from the Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences (HSLU) in a press release. In addition, the insulation layer has to be replaced every 30 years or so and treated as hazardous waste.

Researchers at the HSLU School of Engineering and Architecture teamed up with brick manufacturer Keller AG Ziegelein in Pfungen in the canton of Zurich and other industry partners to address this issue. They developed a new brick facade system called KISmur that consists of two brick layers. The thin, interior layer consists of a hard brick that supports the building structure. The exterior layer, made of softer, large-sized bricks, is 30-centimeters thick, making it twice as thick as the interior layer, and is covered with plaster on the exterior side. A gap of around one centimeter exists between the two layers.

The new facade offers good insulating properties while still permeable for humidity. This in turns reduces the need for building engineering services, driving down both construction and maintenance costs. In addition, the facade no longer has to be renovated, which also cuts down on long-term costs.

“We’re building for the next one hundred years, not the next ten,” says Marvin King. “That’s why the energy analysis of a building has to take into account its entire life cycle.”

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”.

Window manufacturer Biene from Winikon in the canton of Lucerne and aerogel specialist Agitec from Dällikon in the canton of Zurich also participated in developing the new system. The project was financed by Innosuisse, the Swiss federal agency for innovation.