news feature Rebuilding brick’s reputation
James Parker reports from the BDA’s Urban Regeneration Day which saw brick on the rise among leading architects.
Architects, contractors and suppliers to the brick industry gathered at Arup’s UK head office recently to hear how the quintessential British building material was seeing a resurgence in a range of urban regeneration projects in London and across the UK. The audience invited by the Brick Development Association heard how brick’s aesthetic possibilities are increas- ingly being exploited, although there are supply challenges. Architects
are relishing the
opportunity to harness the qualities of brick facades from traditional urban terraces to high-rise commercial and mixed-use schemes. Increasing numbers of projects show designers combining brick’s familiarity and longevity with clean modern lines of urban design which it facilitates. Alexis Harrison, associate at Arup
gave a fascinating presentation on design in ceramics ranging from brick’s abilities to create smart and innovative commer- cial brick facades to the possibilities of 3D printing extruded clay buildings in global areas of need. He said that when he entered the industry as a designer at manufacturer Ibstock in 2001, brick was “deeply uncool” but “the world is now a different place – two of the last three Stirling Prize winners were brick build- ings; in 2001 no brick buildings were anywhere near the shortlist.” Harrison told the audience that “we
are in a paradoxical time where architects want to mix high tech with craft – the tectonics of architecture” and brick is being used to achieve this. He gave credit to manufacturers who were creating artistic bricks which were “crafted with love and care.” Arup projects shown included Frank Gehry’s first building in Australia, a new
wing at Sydney’s University of Technology. A typically challenging Gehry model was achieved in a solid brick facade using thousands of small steel wall ties. Harrison also said the Turnmill building
in London’s
Shoreditch was an outstanding example (see image and box on next page) and the new Burberry building in west London had transformed a 1960s concrete panel-clad office using solid brick and bath stone. Peter Murray, chairman of New
London Architecture, claimed a New London Vernacular was being seen across the capital with leading architects employing brick facades within residential designs influenced by years spent working in urban housing in the Netherlands. Murray said that the resulting
buildings were emulating the traditional Georgian London Terrace, including res- idential buildings by David Chipperfield and Martin Richardson which were delivering “highly considered plans” with a keen focus on materiality driving their choice of brick elevations. Harrison agreed that modern Dutch design including big brick soffits has “found its way into the New London Vernacular.” The new chief executive of the Brick
Development Association, Andrew Eagles, told the audience 93 per cent of people surveyed across the UK preferred masonry-built houses. He added that the brick industry had made significant investment in tackling post-recession supply challenges to meet demand: “We recognise there have been issues but the industry has stepped up to deliver.” Speakers addressed the housing crisis
and the need to build faster as well as better to solve the problems. Eagles said: “The unaffordability of London housing
is starting to impact on UK competitive- ness. If we are going to reach the challenging targets on housebuilding, we need to go beyond the 10 per cent rise in completions we achieved in April.” Peter Murray said that London
needed to provide 60,000-70,000 new homes per year to keep up with demand, and it was currently building 18,000. He joked: “The problem is that every time we start building more the price of bricks goes up.” There was some discussion on solutions for delivering the demand needed including the merits of brick slips versus traditional solutions. Murray’s
information-packed talk
included key current examples of brick projects in and around London including Rainham Library (Maccreanor Lavington Architects) whose “crisp form used punched brick to give a clean, con- temporary line,” as well as Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ designs for the first
www.architectsdatafile.co.uk
‘In 2001 there were no brick buildings anywhere near the Stirling Prize shortlist’
Alexis Harrison, Arup
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Turnmill Building, Shoreditch © Hufton+Crow
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