Sun-blocking but make it pretty: Facade ideas that cool down your home

Hindustan Times

04-05-2025

We face a tremendous climate change, extra heat every year, dealing between structures and climatic ecology. Facades designs play a very significant role in any housing building and a villa.
In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Tushar Joshi, Founder of Utkarsh Vastukaran, shared, 'Façade for any house is like painting a blank canvas, with availability of so many options. Minimalist designs always offer sleek simplicity, and contemporary styles make a bold statement. Selecting the right concept and the right sustainability helps the house look great. The design must complement it overall style.'
He added, 'Selection of right materials, colours, and textures that match well together. Avoiding and mixing more things leads to clashing designs, that makes the outside of any house look messy. There are plenty of stylish ways to block the sun while keeping our home's facade visually appealing and cool! With a temperature control during heated summers.'
A sun breaker, is a type of technology like a solar shading system that uses a series of horizontal or vertical blades to control the amount of sunlight and solar heat that enters a building. The name 'brise soleil' comes from the French word that means 'sun breaker'.
These architectural elements, often made of wood or metal slats, block direct sunlight. Facades incorporate louvers into the shades to mitigate high-angle rays in summer, but also permit low-angle winter sunlight for passive solar heating with a variety of pattern structures that act as light-filtration screens on the façades of buildings.
These are essentially external shading devices that are installed on the exterior of the building. These fins can be designed in various shapes, sizes, and materials, adding a unique visual element to the building's façade. The primary function extends beyond aesthetics.
They serve as a protective shield against the sun's heat and glare, making the interior spaces more comfortable and energy-efficient. Incorporating these in façade design is a testament to the shift towards sustainable and eco-friendly architecture. This approach aligns with the global emphasis on energy conservation and the reduction of carbon footprint, given the increasing awareness of climate change.
In any façade design, Pergolas always playa a vital role for transforming backyards, gardens, and patios into stylish and functional outdoor living spaces. A pergola is an outdoor structure, often made of wood, vinyl or metal, like aluminium, featuring vertical posts and either an open lattice or a roof.
It serves to provide shade, create a decorative space, and some versions with louvered roofs can adjust to control sunlight and rain exposure. These structures can support climbing plants, providing natural shade while enhancing aesthetics.
Architectural louvers are a type of building element that is used to control the amount of light, air, and sound that enters a building. They are typically installed on the exterior, and are designed to be adjustable, allowing the user to control the angle at which they are oriented.
Blades are extruded aluminium profiles that can be used as sun protection, façade cladding or as a visual barrier. Louvres system is installed horizontally on or vertically in front of the façade to achieve the desired shading effect.
Balconies are an ancient architectural archetype that are being increasingly considered to provide a comprehensive impact on the indoor environmental quality and energy consumption of dwellings. A cantilever and overhang refer the same as a structural element that is anchored at one end and extends horizontally beyond its support. It is designed to carry loads along its length and is supported only at one end.
Enhancing the ventilation performance of energy-efficient buildings with single-sided openings is important because their ventilation performance is poor and strongly depends on the wind conditions. Considering an overhang as a potential building façade for improving the single-sided ventilation performance. performed numerical simulations of three-dimensional unsteady turbulent flows over an idealised building with an overhang in order to investigate the effect of the overhang on the ventilation performance.