Architectural heat and moisture exchange

An apparatus for enabling heat and moisture exchange, comprising:

• an opaque exchanger housing having an opaque front face, an opaque rear face and a pair of opaque side faces collectively defining an interior channel in the form of a shallow rectangular volume with the front and rear faces each having a respective surface area that is larger than a surface area of each of the side faces, and wherein the front face forms an opaque first part of a building enclosure system that is exterior of the interior channel and is adjacent to, in a plane parallel to, and faces in a common direction as a second part of the building enclosure system that is not formed by the housing;
• a corrugated membrane disposed within the housing generally parallel to the front face, and dividing the interior channel into a first sub-channel through which a source gas stream may pass and a second sub-channel through which an exhaust gas stream may simultaneously pass;
• wherein the membrane is permeable to water vapor and substantially impermeable to principal constituent gases of air;
• wherein the membrane is corrugated by an amount allowing a desired membrane surface area to fit within the interior channel;
• and
• wherein the sub-channels are configured to direct the source air stream and the and the exhaust air stream parallel to the opaque front face and the opaque rear face within the sub-channels.

A heat and moisture exchanger system, comprising:

• an exchanger housing having an opaque front face, an opaque rear face and a pair of opaque side faces, each side face having a surface area smaller than a surface area of the front face and the rear face so that the front, rear and side faces collectively define a shallow rectangular volume having a length, a width and a depth less than both the length and the width,
• wherein the front face forms an opaque first portion of a rain screen layer disposed on an exterior side of a building, the opaque first portion of the rain screen layer formed by the front face being adjacent to, in a plane parallel to, and facing in a common direction as a second portion of the rain screen layer that is not formed by the exchanger housing;
• and
• a membrane dividing the rectangular volume defined by the exchanger housing into a pair of sub-channels each oriented substantially parallel to the front face and the rear face, the membrane configured to allow passage of water vapor and to prevent substantial passage of principal constituent gases of air between the sub-channels;
• wherein the exchanger is configured (a) to allow passage of a source air stream from outside the building through one of the sub-channels to inside the building, (b) to allow passage of an exhaust air stream from inside the building through another of the sub-channels to outside the building, and (c) to transfer heat and moisture through the membrane between the exhaust air stream and the source air stream;
• wherein the opaque rear face is disposed on the exterior side of the building, leaving an air gap between the opaque rear face and an exterior wall of the building, and
• wherein the sub-channels are configured to direct the source air stream and the exhaust air stream parallel to the opaque front face and the opaque rear face within the sub-channels.