In future blog posts this fall we’ll be encouraging you, as architects, builders, and designers, to enter the Brick Industry Association’s Brick in Architecture Awards. We offered the same encouragement last year, and you may be thinking, “I’d like to see the winners of that brick awards program…thingy.” We’d like you to see them, too, and we have just the solution for you.

Brick is one of few building materials that can build on a traditional aesthetic character while also embracing modern construction technology. That unique characteristic is part of what paved the way to success for the designers at HDR Inc. when designing the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland campus.

At the onset of the project, the design team faced a challenge that is increasingly familiar to practicing architects — to create a new, state-of-the-art building that will support modern uses while allowing it to build on design themes already present at a historic university campus. While that challenge is familiar, it is by no means easy to overcome. Doing so requires designers to make tactful and tasteful decisions throughout the design process, not the least of which is selecting the ideal material palette.  

As with the outfield wall at the Chicago Cub’s Wrigley Field, ivy growing on brick structures seems to carry with it an air of tradition and history. Many agree that ivy on brick is a dignified and classic design choice.

But we’re not going to debate the design merits of brick and ivy here. Rather, let’s discuss whether that ivy is good for the brick structure itself.

The Filigree House is a rarity within Philadelphia’s Graduate Hospital Neighborhood. Unlike most buildings in this neighborhood it sits on a double-wide lot, which gave the design team a prominent canvas with which to contribute a bold statement to the streetscape, but with the challenge of staying within the confines of the existing neighborhood’s fabric. Making the most of the opportunity called for brick, of course!

As with any residence, privacy was a must for this 5,000-square-foot home. To provide that privacy, the Moto Designshop team created a four-layer brick screen at the front of the Filigree home. This delicately articulated screen rests on a series of curved steel support frames that artfully conceals the home’s interior.

While a solid brick wall would have delivered ultimate privacy, brick’s unmatched design flexibility was called upon to playfully engage the streetscape with a translucence that is more veil than mask, letting in natural light and hinting at the home’s interior design. The brick screen allows for selective views of ornamental features inside, including a beautiful helical staircase, and gives those within the home a chance to gaze out into the neighborhood.

Phase II of the General Academic and Music Building is an ambitious expansion of the Music Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. The project joins Phase 1 in further defining and delineating the western edge of the central quadrangle with a porous boundary of interconnected courtyards, covered passages, loggias, and intimate exterior seating areas.

Designers from Richter Architects broke with the monolithic character of typical campus buildings by proposing four parallel sculptured brick masses that slip and slide past each other along a north-south axis. On the ground level, an exterior promenade along this axis defines courtyards, shaded meeting spaces and open-air performance areas. Multilevel glass bridges span above, connecting these staggered brick islands almost as stepping stones in a stream, creating spaces for interaction and perches for enjoying the view below.

While the idea of a block-long brick façade may seem dull to some, the creative use of brick at Gansevoort Row emphatically dispels that notion. The design team at BKSK Architects, made full use of brick’s unmatched design flexibility as it set out to revive the exterior appearance of a commercial block in Manhattan’s Gansevoort Market Historic District.