News Climate

Zigzag walls could help buildings beat the heat

Playing the angles can keep an exterior wall several degrees cooler than a standard flat wall

Schematic of how a building's zigzag wall both reflects and emits heat.

This zigzag wall design can cool off a building by reflecting both incoming solar radiation (yellow) and heat from the ground (red), while also emitting heat, as long-wave infrared radiation (blue), back to space.

Q. Cheng et al/Nexus 2024

By Carolyn Gramling

Here’s a twist: Adding zigzags to walls could help cool an overheated building, even as global temperatures rise.