Picture credit: James Feaver on Unsplash
Picture caption: Can we do better than red-brick housing estates?
Imagine a stunning house on top of a hill, and instead of the ubiquitous “glass box”, you’re looking at a brick-built design that changes dramatically as the sun moves across the sky. Of course, these bricks are pale in colour, rather than the bland, red brick of a newly built three-bed.
A US-based brick manufacturer has created decorative glazed bricks with an iridescent surface that appears to change with the light, and would be perfect for that hilltop home. The clay-coated bricks come in four different shades, with the lightest version providing an alternative to white-glazed bricks.
It sometimes feels as if the UK is being covered in boring, red-brick, new-build estates, with a focus on economy over aesthetics, so I like to keep an eye out for the more uplifting designs and materials. Bricks that look a little less “flat” and come in shades of sand, grey and white are a welcome change.
After reading an article about these luminescent bricks, I began to wonder about other innovative building materials being used to save us from architectural despair, and I found these examples:
- A Victorian house in south-east London with a cork-clad extension added to the rear. The cork is both sustainable and helps with insulation, keeping the home warmer and quieter.
- A Hampstead home extension clad in handmade, folded bronze tiles, created to echo the zig-zag roof design of the ground-floor kitchen extension and first floor study.
- Forest Mews, a small, sustainable community of three live/work houses around a shared courtyard. This one is brick-built, but using a light sand-coloured brick and an imaginative design with columns and pillars around the courtyard.
- A larch timber-clad Passivhaus in the Cambridgeshire Fens, with upside-down living arrangements, to make the most of the views.
- A Kent-based Dutch barn conversion with larch cladding and a red Corten steel roof, with a wildflower meadow outside.
Even though I work on the structural side of things, rather than the architectural side, I still draw inspiration from the world of design and architecture. If you’re using new materials or techniques in your designs, I’m always interested to hear about them.
What are you suggesting to clients, and what are clients asking for?
Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
