Dmitry Samylin: Russian "author's" Brick Is More Beautiful, And Stronger, And Cheaper

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Dmitry Samylin:

“Our long format bricks are absolutely superior in quality and characteristics to Danish and Italian ones, and they cost less. The minimum price of Danish bricks at the factory is 4.5 euros per piece excluding VAT, shipping and customs. Italian brick price - 2.5 euros … Our product is worth 135.98 rubles including VAT and delivery to the customer's site."

Part 1. Development of brick production in Russia

Archi.ru:

The most beautiful brick in my life I have seen in England, old farms are made of it. In 2006 I went to London to interview one of the best architects of our time, Quinlan Terry. He builds himself from very fine clinker. And what do you think Terry asked me about? He asked if there are beautiful clays and good bricks in Russia. I will forward his question to you. There is?

Dmitry Samylin, Kirill company:

There is! I would just like to talk about the development of brick production in Russia. If we are doing quite well with the availability of various clays, then with the development of subsoil and the extraction of raw materials, everything is somewhat more complicated. The reason for the difficulties lies in the economy. First, there are not so many explored quarries in Russia; secondly, those who want to do this need to obtain permission to develop, and our subsoil belongs to the state. Many investors, even having high-quality raw materials for the ceramic industry, prefer to sell the building plot, because in this case it will pay off faster. But even if you already own an active quarry, it is not so easy to work with clays. You have to deal with like a "puff pie" with a lot of fillings. Among them there may be a thin layer of expensive white clay, no more than 10 cm wide. It is very difficult to get it accurately without sending it to the dump and mixing it with other varieties..

Can't you mix the clays on the contrary for picturesqueness?

No, you can't, because each clay has its own firing temperature. In general, a brick is a set of many components that are mixed in production. The process of making bricks is a complex technological chain, from quarry to production. The producer must, like a good cook, assemble this "cake" from various components. Not everyone wants to do this.

However, despite all the difficulties, the Donskiye Zori factory is working successfully, and the buildings faced with this brick, say, Rassvet LOFT *Studio of DNK ag group, collect many prizes in international architectural competitions …

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  1/4 Club complex RASSVET LOFT * Studio, 3.34 Photo © DNK ag, Ilya Ivanov

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  2/4 Club complex RASSVET LOFT * Studio, 3.34 Photo © DNK ag, Ilya Ivanov

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  3/4 Club complex RASSVET LOFT * Studio, 3.34 Photo © DNK ag, Ilya Ivanov

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  4/4 Club complex RASSVET LOFT * Studio, 3.34 Photo © DNK ag, Ilya Ivanov

Donskiye Zori”is our trade mark. Last year, we developed a technical assignment for production workers. Now it is being implemented. For example, we are preparing to launch the Wasserstrich line. This is a popular trend in Europe today. He has a rich color palette with picturesque smudges and a peculiar crumpled texture. Wasserstrich can be produced in clinker or conventional form. We have purchased equipment for the new line, but pre-orders are required to launch it. I think he has good prospects. Everything is ready for us, we are waiting for the consumer.

LK: I see in your showroom an aged brick with a very complex texture. I have long wanted to ask: why the pre-revolutionary brick, which we see in the ruins of old estates, is pleasing to the eye, and from the Soviet era there are buildings made of wretched silicate brick or boring yellow-pink, from which, among other things, the houses of the Central Committee of the Party, considered elite, are made. Is this aged brick insanely expensive?

This is an ordinary hand-formed brick, which is put into a drum, and the edges are beaten off and a cement "milk" is applied. We have specially developed this brick for the Donskiye Zori trade line and can produce it to order. It is just not difficult to manufacture, but it looks very beautiful. Bricklayers do not like aged brick, because it is difficult for them to work with the seams, which in this case must necessarily be wide. On the other hand, the structural surface gives an unusually rich color scheme in comparison with ordinary brick.

Nevertheless, customers most often prefer clinker rather than hand molding, because we have a very aggressive environment in the capital: a lot of dust, soot, smog. In clinker, dust and dirt do not integrate into the pores of the brick, dust is removed with wind and rain, and the clinker cleans itself. In Russia, besides the Donskiye Zori plant, only LSR is engaged in clinker.

Part 2. New factories and new collections

This year, new products from the Kirovo-Chepetsk brick plant and the KERMA plant, with which you work closely, will enter the market. What makes their products interesting?

Kirovo-Chepetskiy brick factory creates bricks of variegated colors, similar to European, in particular, German. They work with colored sands and engobes. Engobe is a pigment mixed with clay, from which a coating is formed, which is applied to the brick and decorates it. First, a brick is molded from clay, and then the same clay, mixed with a pigment of a more intense color (black, gray brown, yellow, white), is applied to the brick in a thin layer. As for the work with colored sands, I would like to note a collection that imitates the products of the German factory Feldhaus klinker - a brick with a rusticated surface.

Kirovo-Chepetskiy brick factory actively uses the flash firing technology. The essence of the technology lies in the constant regulation of the amount of air supplied to the inside of the oven, due to which the product can have different shades, from dark red (burgundy) to absolutely black. The firing itself is carried out due to the release of oxygen from the iron oxide, which is in the clay. The result is a brick with a glass surface and a unique shade. The point is to get a complex play of color: yellow, gray, red or brown bricks with complex color transitions.

In addition, our company purchased a die for the plant - a frame for making bricks of an "elongated" format measuring 290 x 85 x 40. This is a very popular format, interesting for architects. In May it will appear in Moscow and will be sold under the trademark

Rheinklinker.

What opportunities does KERMA brick give an architect? Is it true that the COLOR series palette is not limited by anything?

The KERMA company, together with a European institute, has developed a water-repellent color coating called "RGB". Unlike engobes, which rely on mineral pigments, this coating has almost unlimited possibilities for color nuances. Conventional ceramics do not allow for an infinite number of shades, and some of the colors are very expensive to manufacture. And with RGB water-repellent coating, we can order a brick for any RAL that we need. The brick itself is monochrome, with a matte or more shiny surface.

So an architect can draw a pattern and make a brick layout map?

Yes it is possible. You can also make the transition from dark to light bricks. : this is called color stretch. We are ready to supply both three and four colors, which the builders mix at the construction site. Or, if we are provided with a technological map, we supply a ready-made MIX, made up of several types of bricks in a certain proportion.

Please provide examples of buildings made of bricks of an unusual color?

A residential complex "Two capitals" is being built in Khimki. Some houses there are faced with blue and green bricks. But these are not the most common colors. The consumer is closer to beige, white, gray and black shades.

With an average price of 42-50 rubles per piece, the KERMA brick of the COLOR series demonstrates good characteristics. It is vapor-permeable with a water-repellent surface, resistant to dirt, soot and dust. For two years, he was tested. And now the brick is ready to be embedded. It will be exclusively sold by our company.

From what is presented in your showroom, in my art criticism, the most exquisite is the Fabrika collection of the Donskiye Zori TM. Complex rich surface, noble colors worthy of painting. This is the first time I see a Russian brick of this level. Tell us more about it

The Fabrika collection is dedicated to pre-revolutionary industrial architecture. The models are named after old Russian factories, many of which no longer exist: "Nord", "Tudor", "Vienna", "Levada". This is a handmade brick of size 475 x 85 x 40, which is produced at the "Donskiye Zori" plant, in Semikarakorsk, Rostov region. This brick is unique in that it is a real clinker.

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  1/5 Clinker of the "FACTORY" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant © "KIRILL" company

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  2/5 Clinker of the "FACTORY" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant © "KIRILL" company

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  3/5 Clinker of the "FACTORY" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant © "KIRILL" company

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  4/5 Clinker of the "FACTORY" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant © "KIRILL" company

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  5/5 Clinker of the "FACTORY" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant © "KIRILL" company

Our competitors for this product are Europeans, the most famous is the Danish company Petersen Tegl, which produces bricks with dimensions of 528 x 108 x 37. Not all of their products have the characteristics of clinker, in contrast to our products. Characteristics of long format bricks of the Fabrika series: water absorption less than 5%, compressive strength above 400 kgf / cm² (40.0 N / mm2), bending index above 90 kgf / cm² (9.0 N / mm2). For you to understand, for clinker paving stones, which are heavily loaded from transport, this figure is at least 8.0 N / mm2, and we have more than 9.0 N / mm2 for facing bricks!

How the architects reacted to the brick of the Fabrika collection Please compare it with the European clinker

The Fabrika collection appeared only in the middle of last year. Architects like it, but they are still careful. Basically, this clinker is ordered for private houses. Our competitors are Petersen Tegl, Randers Tegl, S. Anselmo, but our brick is better than the European one in terms of characteristics. Moreover, its cost is lower than the cost of Western products. The minimum price for Petersen Tegl at the factory is 4.5 euros per piece, excluding VAT. S. Anselmo Italian brick costs from 2.5 euros. Our product costs 135.98 rubles including VAT and delivery to the customer's site. So Russian bricks are prettier, stronger and cheaper.

Very expensive western bricks sometimes do not behave very well on facades. The fact is that our GOST is much stricter than European standards. In Europe, frost resistance for facing bricks is not specified specifically in cycles. There are only three positions: F0 - for indoor work, F1 - for indoor and outdoor, F2 - for outdoor. But how many cycles of freezing-thawing, you will not be told: thirty or three hundred. Our institutes are engaged in this. For several years we have been working to improve the quality of TM “Donskih Zori” products, and now we can give a head start to European factories both in terms of the variety of colors and quality.

I want to return to the interests of architects. Authors from the DNK ag group have created such outstanding Rassvet LOFT * Studio facades from domestic bricks "Donskih Zori" that this opens up great prospects. What kind of collection was it?

This is the first brick series of the mass segment, it is called "Stanitsa". This is the simplest product in the standard format 250 x 120 x 65, plus a half of 250 x 60 x 65. LOFT Studio Dawn is built from it.

Wow massive segment! A luxurious property that has received so many international architectural awards

A mix was used there, which was designed by the architect from DNK ag, Daniil Lorenz. Then, in 2014, import substitution became relevant, and the developer KR Properties offered to take domestic bricks for cladding. Now the residential complex “Barton” is being built from bricks of the “Stanitsa” series.

This season, four shades are added to the “Stanitsa” collection. Last year we worked with two sands, and the colors were classic: red with black, burgundy with black, brown with black. And this year more complex colors will appear in new models: "Krasnoyarsk" - burgundy, black, yellow; "Suvorovsky" - brown, black, yellow, green, etc.

Tell us about the collection "Usadba" TM "Donskiye Zori". Does it have something to do with nostalgia for pre-revolutionary architecture?

The Usadba collection is a premium segment, hand-made. The bricks are manually driven into the molds. They used to be wooden, now they are metal. We use molds with a "frog" - a recess, which facilitates both the molding and firing of bricks, and the product itself. But you can also make a completely solid brick on request. Each brick goes through the hands of the master. This is followed by drying, firing, and then manual bulkhead. The names of the models in this collection are associated with the Russian estate of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. "Morozovo" is a brick with "gray" patterns, "Seagull" is a white brick. "Turgenevo", "Abramtsevo", "Narma", "Izvekovo", "Konstantinovo" - these estates are scattered throughout our vast homeland. Unfortunately, most of them are in a state of destruction. Turning to the manors was natural for us, because all the historical manors are built of bricks.

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  1/4 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. "Abramtsevo" © firm "KIRILL"

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  2/4 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. "Grace" © firm "KIRILL"

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  3/4 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. "Abramtsevo - patterned" © firm "KIRILL"

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  4/4 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. "Borodino" © firm "KIRILL"

For the Usadba collection we have chosen the English format: 215 x 102 x 65. We also offer figured bricks with stamps and inscriptions. The brick of the "Usadba" collection is actively used both in private housing construction and in public buildings. The price per piece is 48-67 rubles, which is 30-40% cheaper than the European product. We don't quite understand what a hand made is. In the West, on the contrary, they realize that it is rare. There are few handicrafts there. And they are proud of it and value their product highly. Handmade bricks are not as perfect as machine bricks.

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  1/8 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. Stamp "Eagle" © firm "KIRILL"

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  2/8 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. Stamp "Bars" © firm "KIRILL"

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  3/8 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. Stamp "Eagle" © firm "KIRILL"

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  4/8 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. Stamp "Bars" © firm "KIRILL"

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  5/8 Bricks from the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. Stamp "God" © firm "KIRILL"

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  6/8 Figured bricks of the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. © firm "KIRILL"

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  7/8 Figured bricks of the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. © firm "KIRILL"

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  8/8 Figured bricks of the "ESTATE" collection of the "Donskiye Zori" plant. © firm "KIRILL"

In conclusion, I would like to ask you about the planned events on the brick theme (instead of the canceled MOSBUILD). Last year the KIRILL company together with Hagemeister held a large seminar on the practice of using bricks by Russian and foreign architects. This year the seminar will be held for the second time. What's in store for architects? Tell us the details

In general, Hagemeister has been holding an international seminar on clinker for a long time. More than 250 people, the leading architects of Europe, are participating. Three or four lecturers will speak. The aim is to show the application of clinker products. The first Russian seminar took place in 2019. It was organized by our company and Sergey Skuratov Architects, and took place in his workshop, on the territory of the Garden Quarters residential complex, because many houses there are faced with clinker.

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  1/4 Seminar Hagemeister on Clinker Architecture in Moscow © JSC "Firm KIRILL"

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  2/4 Seminar Hagemeister on Clinker Architecture in Moscow © JSC "Firm KIRILL"

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  3/4 Christian Hagemeister, Head of Hagemeister at a seminar in Moscow © JSC "Firm KIRILL"

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  4/4 Seminar Hagemeister on Clinker Architecture in Moscow © JSC "Firm KIRILL"

This year the seminar was supposed to take place on May 21 at the Ruin pavilion of the Museum of Architecture, but, apparently, will be postponed to September. We are planning to invite well-known architects and major developers. Andrey Romanov from ADM architects (Moscow), Russia; Joachim Hein from RKW Architektur (Germany), Richard Lavington from MLA + International Bureau and Joost Kok Maccreanor from Lavington Architects. The seminar is called Klinker Creations and is dedicated to clinker in the architecture of large cities. Come! It will be interesting.

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The Kirill company - a leading supplier of facing and building bricks, ceramic tiles, clinker, clinker tiles, large-format warm ceramics and ready-made building solutions - has carried out a complete reconstruction of the exhibition hall in its office on Begovaya. The project was carried out by the architect Dmitry Averin. More than 1000 brick options of different colors and textures are waiting for you: clinker, premium handmade bricks, hand-molded bricks, paving stones of Russian and foreign manufacturers.

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  1/3 Renovated show-room of the KIRILL company on Begovaya. Arch. Dmitry Averin

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  2/3 Renovated show-room of the KIRILL company on Begovaya. Arch. Dmitry Averin

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  3/3 Renovated show-room of the KIRILL company on Begovaya. Arch. Dmitry Averin