Charlotte is a growing city in North Carolina. Charlotte's economic growth is driven by a 250-year history of ambitious and incredibly hardworking residents who have built this beautiful city. Today, it is being built up with modern buildings and skyscrapers made of glass and concrete, but residents are also carefully preserving the old buildings.
The soil is clayey, and red brick was the most common material for the construction of residential and public buildings. If you look at the historic buildings, you can see this characteristic of Charlotte material everywhere - especially in ancient mills, warehouses and factories of the then significant textile industry.
When it was decided to build a basketball stadium in the city center, the residence of the local NBA Charlotte Bobcats team, in order to receive contributions to support the construction program (and its cost was very significant - 265 million US dollars, approximately 207 million euros), the city authorities attracted to discuss the project of the residents of Charlotte.
At public meetings, they could offer their ideas, and even sketches, express wishes and comments. It was very important for everyone that the new Time Warner Cable Arena (formerly Charlotte Bobcats Arena) became an important integral part of the city and not a foreign body.
Despite the fact that the designers (Odell Associates, Ellerbe Becket and Freelon Group, Inc.) have already created more than one significant sports facility in the country, they listened very carefully to the opinion of the citizens and the municipality. the design had a strong impact on the appearance of the new building, and no one doubted that the construction of such a socially significant building should include the traditional red clinker - it symbolizes the industrial past of the city.
And in order to emphasize the modern focus of the sports center and the economic prosperity of the city, the brick has been supplemented with such relevant materials as composite panels and glass. So the new building not only reflected the usual look of the city, but also contributed to the rejuvenation of the city center.
When choosing a brick, the impression that the structure makes on pedestrians was taken into account. The large size of the stadium (70,000 square meters of usable area) required a brick that was quite large for the American style (306x102x102 mm), which allowed achieving the desired distribution of proportions and the scale familiar to the human eye. Therefore, for the construction of the Arena, they chose clinker bricks that fit the architectural style of Charlotte - the large-format Utility Brick profiled bricks.
In order to pay tribute to the textile industry of this region, curious decorative sculptures are installed in the square in front of the stadium. They look like art objects and represent Charlotte's contemporary art. To implement this idea, shaped ceramic products were made that go well with red clinker.
The result was so amazing that the project received a special North Carolina Brick Award 2007 from the American Institute of Architecture of North Carolina
Collections of bricks with color schemes for the project: Berlijn brick produced by CRH concern (Netherlands).
Information provided by the company "Kirill"
