14 DAY TRIAL // Deserts are hot places, except during the night, but even in tropical and temperate climates things can get pretty hot pretty fast in summer. We may still be several months off from that part of the year, but there's no harm in preparing for it in advance.
Air conditioning units are one way to deal with this issue, but they are expensive things and they need periodic maintenance.
And they aren't just expensive to buy and set up, but they eat a constant amount of electricity afterwards.
Now, there may finally be an alternative to those things: Cool Bricks. Created by the folks at Emerging Objects, they use water to keep a room at a pleasant temperature.
The Cool Brick
Considering that this invention relies on water in order to do its job, we suppose it won't be the best solution in the desert after all. However, if you live in any place where water isn't an issue, you might want to consider using them.
The brick is made through 3D printing technology and revives a room cooling system that dates back over 3,300 years.
Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael are the designers of the Cool Brick. They applied the principle of evaporative cooling.
Evaporative cooling is a concept that states water will evaporate if the air passing by has a temperature in which the water vapor in it condenses. The scientific term is lower dew point.
Water droplets begin to leave the air when the air temperature drops below that dew point, which is why the Cool Brick can fill a room with moist air cooler than the alternative.
All it would take would be to build the walls from the Cool bricks (3D printed ceramic lattice), fill them with water (kind of like sponges) and let nature do the rest.
The water stays in the bricks until hot, dry air passes through and absorbs the water, becoming cooler. A bonus is that any Cool Brick wall looks, well, kind of cool. Doubles as a decoration as it were.
TETHON 3D, a company that specializes in 3D printing with clay, helped bring about the project.
Practical applications
Places like Florida where humidity levels are naturally high won't benefit much from such an approach, if they do at all. But other areas further inland definitely could put the Cool Brick to good use.
