Eco-friendly exoskeleton cuts apartment building energy use by 60%

Nine white apartment buildings stand out like spaceships among the ageing brick facades of the Bushwick neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York. The century-old buildings were recently upgraded with an energy-efficient exoskeleton, an effort to slash the buildings' energy consumption in half while minimising disruption to tenants. This could serve as a model for the millions of building retrofits needed to meet climate targets. Ryan Cassidy at RiseBoro, the affordable housing organisation that developed the project, says the "spaghetti" of piping …