The Brick Award has been held every two years since 2004. It is awarded for buildings whose architectural design is based on the use of ceramic materials: bricks, tiles, paving stones, large-format blocks, etc. The Brick Award winners are characterized by a high architectural standard.
In 2017, the Russian stage of the Brick Award took place, where the house of Sergei Skuratov on ul. Burdenko, and in the "Working Together" nomination - the business quarter of the "Arma" plant of Vladimir Labutin ("Sergey Kiselev and Partners"), for a private house in Shatura the prize was received by Sergey Kolchin.
This year a record 644 projects from 55 countries have been nominated for the International Brick Award. An expert council of architectural critics selected 50 buildings from among them, which in turn were evaluated by a professional jury, naming six winners. The winners in five nominations received 5,000 euros each, and the Grand Prix was 7,000 euros. The awards ceremony was held online for the first time due to the epidemic.
The Grand Prix. Nomination "Living in Society". Faculty of Radio and Television, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
The nomination "Living in Society" covers cultural and public facilities. Evaluating the faculty of the University of Silesia, the jury noted that the authors demonstrated an exceptional variety and subtlety in the use of bricks, and in harmony with the old town. The university building was built in the historical center of the Polish mining town of Katowice, although today the city-forming factor here is more culture than coal mining. An old brick apartment building with a characteristic order decor was about to be demolished, but the architects preferred to integrate it into a new educational building, which they gave in the plan a square shape. The faculty is embedded in a dense city block. The old façade, with its traditional brickwork, is juxtaposed with a transparent modern "grill" made of exactly the same brick. The brick lattice extends up and to the sides of the old building (it makes up about one-sixth of the new building), and at the top the lattice forms an attic slope, repeating the slope of the attic of the neighboring house, and then passes into a flat roof. The lattice facade is made in a strict modernist style: unlike the old building standing on the ground, the new part of the faculty rests on columns, and through the space of the first floor from the street, the university courtyard opens invitingly - the center of social life. The building faces the courtyard with a transparent glass façade with a large auditorium. In the solution of the facades of other buildings, the technique of a brick lattice in combination with wood is again used. In the interior, hand-molded bricks with various nuances of sintering and color gradations cover the walls, the floor, and in some places even the ceiling. For the ceiling, the architects also came up with a perforated structure - something like caissons. Brick with an exceptionally beautiful, high-quality surface does not require additional processing and becomes the basis for both the external image of the building and the internal space.
Nomination "Living Together". Rural residential building in Rwanda
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zooming 1/3 Pilot project of a village house in Rwanda. Architects: Rafi Segal and the MIT Working Group in Rwanda Photo © Rafi Segal, Monica Hutton, Andrew Brose / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming 2/3 Pilot project of a village house in Rwanda. Architects: Rafi Segal and the MIT Working Group in Rwanda Photo © Rafi Segal, Monica Hutton, Andrew Brose / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming 3/3 Pilot project of a village house in Rwanda. Architects: Rafi Segal and the MIT Working Group in Rwanda Photo © Rafi Segal, Monica Hutton, Andrew Brose / Courtesy of Wienerberger
In this category, multi-apartment residential buildings compete, innovative residential solutions taking into account the trends and problems of urbanization. Designed by architect Rafi Segal and the MIT team in Rwanda, this multi-family unit aims to bring the village to life with bold design. But the social goal is no less important. The house is being built from local bricks, by local workers and ordinary villagers (for example, anyone can wash bricks, people get jobs and housing at the same time). In fact, the process of building a house becomes the process of building a community. This prototype of affordable housing takes into account the traditions of African construction, for example, it has a wind-blown wall with holes, which is important in hot climates. Houses are easily interlocked with each other, creating a variety of choices for a thoughtful rustic environment.
Nomination "Feel at home". Photo studio in Mexico City, Mexico
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zooming Project Workshop of photographer Graciela Iturbide Architects: TALLER | Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming Project Workshop of photographer Graciela Iturbide Architects: TALLER | Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger
An elegant solution won the nomination for private houses. Architect Maurizio Roja designed this studio for his mother, photographer Graciela Iturbide, known for her black and white portraits of Mexican peasants. The only condition of the customer was the material of the future studio - brick. In a densely populated urban area, on a narrow section of 7 x 14 m, a three-story tower was erected, towering over the surroundings. Openwork walls made of locally made bricks are both a link and a border between the house and the surroundings. The brick pattern is simple but expressive: rows of two thin horizontal bricks alternate with vertical bricks twice as thick, located with air pauses between them. Shined by the sun, this pattern forms a whimsical pattern in the interior, woven of light and shadow. In the lower part of the house, for greater privacy from the surroundings, a brick lattice is used, so to speak, of a denser knit (the similarity of brick lattices and masonry patterns with knitting is obvious - this is generally a trend in recent years). The interior space is organized like this: rooms of 28 sqm are designed on three levels, the rooms open with sliding glass walls to the patio to the north and south, creating a chain of more intimate and more open, well-lit spaces.
Special prize. Nomination "Feel at home". Private house in Palma, Spain
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zooming Project Villa Can Jaime i n´Isabelle Architects: TEd´A arquitectes © TedA Arquitectes / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming Project Villa Can Jaime i n´Isabelle Architects: TEd´A arquitectes © TedA Arquitectes / Courtesy of Wienerberger
This house in the Mediterranean town of Palma, in a secluded hillside setting, has been awarded a special prize for its contemporary interpretation of a traditional house with an interior atrium. The house is surrounded by almost fortified walls made of concrete (only the pool is placed on a separate terrace and one wall has panoramic glazing with a view). Inside the house, in contrast to the external seclusion, walls of brick and clay, painted white, were used, and a whole system of four patios was formed, into which large windows open. Some patios are covered with pergolas, the brickwork of the walls has picturesque interspersed with other materials, which gives the impression of an inhabited ruin. Local plants grow in each of the courtyards. There are also green gardens on the rooftops. Thus, the house becomes a green oasis in this mountainous area.
Working Together. City Archives in Delft, Netherlands
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zooming 1/3 Delft City Archives Architects: Winhov (Netherlands) and Gottlieb Paludan Architects (Denmark) Photo © Stefan Müller / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming 2/3 Delft City Archives Architects: Winhov (Netherlands) and Gottlieb Paludan Architects (Denmark) Photo © Stefan Müller / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming 3/3 Delft City Archives Architects: Winhov (Netherlands) and Gottlieb Paludan Architects (Denmark) Photo © Stefan Müller / Courtesy of Wienerberger
In the building of the city archive of Delft, built by order of the city authorities, the authors managed, according to them, to achieve the unity of form and content. Architects perceive the concept of an archive poetically. The archive for them is both a repository of treasures of information and a time machine that gives access to the past. The building, built inside the city park, on the border with the historic center of Delft, visually represents the division into a "white" public area with cafes, offices and auditoriums - open and transparent, located in the lower tier, and the closed archive itself, located in the brick upper floors … The plastic solution of the facade is reminiscent of bookshelves: brick-faced concrete ledges alternate unevenly, with slight fills in rhythm. The architects also took inspiration from the reliefs by the Delft painter Jan Schunhoven in this solution. In general, such a solution should be recognized as universal for a brick facade: although there are no windows in this facade, they can be easily integrated into this structure. Since historic Delft is built mostly of bricks, the choice of materials is also a tribute to the city.
Nomination "Build outside the box". Library for English High School in Copargaon, India
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zooming Maya Somaiya Library Architects: Sameep Padora & Associates (India) Photo © Edmund Sumner / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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zooming Maya Somaiya Library Architects: Sameep Padora & Associates (India) Photo © Edmund Sumner / Courtesy of Wienerberger
The library was built between a school, farmland and an electrical substation in an unpresentable location, with which they did not know what to do for a long time. Its roof is a vault, lined with the so-called Catalan masonry of three layers of brick tiles 32 mm thick. The vault rises smoothly from the ground and just as smoothly goes back into the ground. It is so shallow that it also serves as a landscape through which children and adults can safely walk. Similar horizontal brick vaults have been known since the 16th century. In this case, they are effectively combined with a modern parametric form, modeled on a computer, but at the same time folded by artisans by hand, which was noted by the jury as a non-standard solution.
The Brick Award 20, along with the high artistic level of the projects and the originality of the use of ceramic products, showcases the trends in the field of modern architecture. The jury of the competition always appreciates the environmental friendliness of projects. Although bricks are energy-intensive to manufacture and clay is not a renewable resource, the durability and beauty of ceramic materials redeems the cost. One factor in evaluating buildings is the preference for local ceramic materials, which do not require wasteful energy costs for transportation. Social aspects are also important: architecture should unite people, give work to the local community, create schools and other public buildings for it. When it comes to brick aesthetics, there is clearly a trend towards intricate brick lattices with a variety of knitted patterns. Not masonry patterns, but perforated brick walls and ceilings became the favorite of the current competition.
Brick is the oldest building material, which, as they say, does not tarnish from repetition. This material is aesthetically and symbolically invulnerable and is welcomed with open arms in all terrain. Warm and humane, the brick has a special aura, because, according to the Bible, the first man Adam was created from clay. Maybe that's why brick invariably inspires architects to be creative, even in the cyber modernity.
