Technology | The Breathe Brick passively Improves Air Quality

About a year ago we wrote about Biontile, a tile that could scrub pollutants out of the city skyline. Recently Architect Magazine profiled the Breathe Brick, a brick which passively improves the air quality for inhabitants inside a building. The project is the brainchild of Carmen Trudell of  B O T H Landscape and Architecture. Trudell worked with students at the California Polytechnic State University to design a building component that would act as an electricity-free filtration system.

The project was profiled in Architect Magazine’s 2015 R + D Awards. From Architect Magazine:

“Inspired by vacuum cleaners that spin air through a vortex to separate particles, the team “came up with the idea of putting a cyclone inside of the exterior wall,” Trudell says. They developed the Breathe Brick, a porous concrete masonry unit that stacks to form an air-filtration and structural façade system.

“The faceted surface of the bricks helps direct outside air to rectangular inlet ports. A cyclone filter cast directly into the concrete form causes the incoming air to spin, winnowing out particulates. Brick couplers made from recycled plastic help align the stacking modules’ two vertical shafts—one to accommodate structure reinforcement, and one to send the distilled particulates into a collection hopper at the wall base. The filtered air that passes into the cavity of the double-wythe wall system could then supply an HVAC system or an adjacent interior space directly.”

Diagrams of the Breathe Brick are included with this post

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Images from the designers.