BRICK BULLETIN - The Brick Development Association

BRICK
Viewpoint:
Simply edible
brickwork
6
11
Project:
Dublin
Corporation
housing
Cannon can
Rebuilding the Tate
Celebrating the Jubilee
19
Project:
Eclectic influences
at Corpus Christi,
Tring
Project:
Engineering diversity
at Strathclyde
28
UK £5.00
COVER
Lanchester
Library,
Coventry
University
Summer 2001
BRICK
Summer 2001
UPDATE
3-5
Editor
Sue Duncan
Technical editor
Michael Hammett
Co-ordinating editor
Ruth Slavid
The Brick Awards
Engineering update
The Guild of Bricklayers competitions take off
New masonry code of practice
Retirement of Michael Hammett
New senior architect for BDA
Brickmaking video published
Commendation for ‘BDA Guide to Successful
Brickwork’
VIEWPOINT
6-7
No voussoirs in Vegas, but Sutherland Lyall recalls
delicious brickwork memories closer to home
PROJECT PROFILES
8-10
11-13
14-15
16-18
ISSN: 0307-9325
19-21
Published by
22-23
151 Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4GB
24-25
Printer
Cradley Print
26-27
28-29
Public building
Coventry’s new university library breaks new
ground in energy efficiency
Housing
How Dublin Corporation is preserving city-centre
living
Commercial building
Clarke House introduces new order in redbrick
offices
Housing
Blackwall Basin stands up to its neighbours
Religious building
Solid brickwork, solid craftsmanship at Corpus
Christi, Tring
Housing
Solaria on the Severn at Tewkesbury
Structural brickwork
The problems of a difficult site elegantly resolved
at Monmouth
Refurbishment
Ikon Gallery deploys craft skills to create cuttingedge art showcase
Laboratory building
Blue and red bricks engineer harmony at
Strathclyde University
TECHNICAL NOTES
30-31
Specialist CAD services on offer from brickmakers
BDA MEMBERS
32
2
The Brick
Development
Association Limited
Woodside House
Winkfield
Windsor
Berks SL4 2DX
Tel 01344 885651
Fax 01344 890129
E-mail
brick@brick.org.uk
Website
www.brick.org.uk
Contact details for BDA member companies
S
ome time ago, the BDA’s
membership was enlarged by
the welcome addition of all the
clay brick companies in the Irish
Republic, which has a rich and
diverse tradition of building in
brick. So it is a real pleasure to see
the role of brick architecture in
Ireland reflected in this issue of
Brick Bulletin with the feature on
social housing designed by Dublin
Corporation Architects
Department. We look forward to
showcasing more projects from
Ireland in the future. Long may its
construction boom continue.
Two Irish schemes were
finalists in the 2000 Brick Awards.
Some of these impressive projects
have already appeared in Brick
Bulletin; others are explored in
this number. The quality and
diversity of projects were a
testament to the creativity and
craftsmanship of our building
professionals – aided by the
products and, often, by the
specialist services available from
BDA members. In this issue we
give a survey of member
companies’ CAD facilities,
invaluable for detailing and
creating special features.
How exhilarating it must have
been for the Ikon Gallery team to
bring back to life that derelict
Victorian school. The gentle
cleaning of the fabric, the
painstaking recreation of original
features and a wonderful new
facility for Birmingham.
It’s interesting to note that the
Ikon’s original clock tower helped
ventilation – a principle exploited
to the full 155 years on in
Coventry University’s Lanchester
Library, whose tall cliffs of
brickwork bring new drama to the
city. There’s drama on a smaller
scale at the minimalist Clarke
House in Egham and in the
glorious interior of Corpus Christi
Church in Tring. Indeed, all the
projects featured share this quality.
It all says to me that brick can
challenge, stimulate and excite. It
is not the cosy option.
Con Lenan, chief executive, BDA
BRICK AWARDS NIGHT
1
2
1. John O’Grady of contractor Totty
Group, Jennifer Jeffries and Elaine Toogood
of Short and Associates take the Building of
the Year Award. Right of picture, BDA
Chairman Richard Manning
2. BDP’s Alan Jones (right) receives the
Structural Award from judge Bryn Bir d
3. Architect Anthony Delarue (right)
accepts the Craftsmanship Award from
judge Bob Baldwin
4. Guests at the Awards dinner
4
3
The Brick Awards 2000 were no
exception to a well-established
tradition of excellence and were
presented in some style at the Café
Royal at a gala dinner attended by 400
guests.
Congratulations to the team behind
the Building of the Year – Coventry
University’s new library – (one of
several shortlisted schemes featured in
this issue). And thanks to the
distinguished panel of assessors.
BUILDING OF THE YEAR
Coventry University Lanchester
Library & Resource Centre (See
article p8)
Architect: Short and Associates
Bricks: Marshalls Clay Products
CATEGORY WINNERS
CRAFTSMANSHIP
Church of Corpus Christi, Tring (See
article p19)
Architect: Anthony Delarue Associates
Brickwork: E W Rayment
Bricks: Sussex Brick, Charnwood
Forest Brick, Chelwood Brick, Dunton
Brick
PUBLIC BUILDING
Coventry University Lanchester Library
& Resource Centre
Architect: Short and Associates
Bricks: Marshalls Clay Products
COMMERCIAL BUILDING
Canon (UK) Headquarters, Reigate
Architect: David Richmond & Partners
Bricks: Ibstock Brick
PRIVATE HOUSING
Blackwall Basin, London E14 (See
article p16)
Architect: David Richmond & Partners
Bricks: Ambion Brick, Ibstock Brick
PUBLIC HOUSING
Beveridge Hall, Queens University,
Belfast
Architect: Roger McMichael
Bricks: Baggeridge Brick
SINGLE HOUSE
Ballihoo, Caversham
Architect: Adrian James
Bricks: Bovingdon Brick
STRUCTURAL BRICKWORK
World of Glass, St Helens
Architect: Geoffrey Reid Associates
Engineer: BDP
Bricks: Ibstock Brick
LANDSCAPE
Canon (UK) Headquarters, Reigate
Landscape Design: Holden Liversedge
Bricks: Baggeridge Brick, Ibstock Brick
REFURBISHMENT
The Ikon Gallery (See article p26 )
Architect: Levitt Bernstein
Bricks: Ibstock Brick
EXPORT
Tallaght Regional Hospital, Republic
of Ireland
Architect: Robinson Keefe & Devane
Bricks: Ambion Brick
Panel of Assessors
Professor Tony Monk (Chairman)
Professor of Architecture, University of
Luton
Dr Sutherland Lyall Architectural
writer
Bob Baldwin President of the Guild of
Bricklayers
Bryn Bird Founder partner: Whitby
Bird and Partners, engineers
Eileen Thomas Planning Officer,
Epsom & Ewell Borough Council
Terry Anderson Landscape architect
BRICK AWARDS 2001
● Entry deadline: 13 July
● Awards dinner: 14 November
● Forms from: Awards Office, BDA,
or www.brick.org.uk
or from your brick representative
3
BDA Reader in Brickwork Masonry
Dr Pav Bingel was appointed from October 2000 by Leeds Metropolitan University,
with support from BDA, as The Brick Development Association Reader in Brickwork
Masonry.
Dr Bingel is senior lecturer in civil engineering within the School of the Built
Environment at LMU. An important part of his workload focuses on brickwork
research and innovation issues. This currently includes collaborative project work on
clay brickwork movement characteristics and on the development of advanced design
technologies for brickwork cladding to framed building structures. An example of this
is the experimental full-height brick cladding panels to the seven-storey concreteframed test building at BRE Cardington.
Brick wind-shielding
As part of its contribution towards the
pilot six-storey brick-clad timberframed building at the BRE Cardington
Large Building Test Facility, BDA has
recently completed a Department of the
Environment, Transport and the
Regions Partners in Innovation contract
investigating the wind-shielding effect
of brickwork cladding on timberframed buildings.
The current codified design practice
for timber-framed building structures
accepts the principle of wind load
shielding to walling elevations afforded
by the brick cladding, but practical
use of this wind-shielding effect to
afford economies and improvements in
overall design efficiency is currently
limited.
Completion of this project work
will help to fill gaps in knowledge and
should allow the full effect of
brickwork wind-shielding to be taken
into account in future design code
revisions as well as in other design
guidance documentation.
In measurements taken from the
project work, the brickwork cladding
was found to be shielding the timber
frame by an amount in excess of onethird of the total lateral load applied to
the walling of the test buildings.
Another finding was that the out-ofplane stiffness of brick-clad timberframed walls is considerably higher
than current structural calculation
procedures would indicate.
The project was carried out jointly
by BDA and Ceram Building
Technology.
Masonry Code of Practice
An amended version of BS 5628: Part 3:
2000 ‘Code of Practice for the Use of
Masonry: Structural use of reinforced
and prestressed masonry’ was recently
published by the British Standards
Institution and copies are now
available.
Reinforced brickwork freestanding wall at the
Gillingham Northern Link Relief Road
Masonry support systems – best practice sheets
Two new best practice information sheets have
been published for the specification and site use
of stainless-steel masonry support systems.
These systems typically consist of shelf and
bracket angles, commonly used methods for the
storey-height support of
brickwork and other
masonry from framed
building structures.
The two sheets, SCI-P297
and SCI-P298, give
guidance for contractors
and specifiers respectively.
Both have been issued by
the Masonry Support
Information Group and
are available from the
Steel Construction
Institute at Silwood
Park, Ascot, Berks (tel:
01344 623345).
4
London Regional Senior winner, Craig Greenleaf of
Reading College of Arts & Design
Taking up the trowel
This spring, students at construction
colleges across the county competed in
the Guild of Bricklayers Competitions
regional heats, where demanding test
pieces, built against the clock, called
for quality of the highest order.
Winners progress to the Skill Build
National finals at Ballymena in June,
with the prospect of going for gold at
the 2003 international Youth Skills
Olympics.
Substantial sponsorship comes from
many member companies and this year
there is the added support of a new
cross-industry action group – the Better
Brickwork Alliance. Reinvigorating and
increasing support for the competitions
is one of several BBA initiatives to
expand the skills base by encouraging
new entrants to a career in bricklaying.
Michael Hammett retires
In April, BDA senior architect Michael
Hammett retired after 21 years with the
association. To say that his retirement
will leave a yawning gap is no slight on
his colleagues since Mike’s knowledge
of, enthusiasm for and energetic
promotion of all ‘matters brick’ is
awesome. It would be hard to cite any
area – technical, marketing, education –
that has not benefited from his
expertise, invariably shared in the most
generous manner.
Mike joined BDA in 1979, having
worked in private practice and then
with Wycombe District Council, where
he had been a principal architect. What
is not widely known is that architecture
was in fact a career change. In the late
1950s, Mike was a biologist working
for MAFF on search-and-destroy
missions for insect pests. Inspired by
the work of Arne Jacobsen and Alvar
Aalto and encouraged by his wife
Moya, he changed direction, studied
architecture at the Northern
Polytechnic (1959-64) and left
entomology to others.
He joined BDA’s education team,
whose remit included every sector of
the construction industry – practising
and student architects, contractors,
bricklayers and construction colleges,
distributors and brickmakers. His
duties included lecturing up and down
the land.
Over the years, technical
committees and working parties too
numerous to mention have benefited
from his participation – notably the BSI
committee responsible for masonry
codes.
Add to that a wide range of
technical publications, press articles
and his guiding editorial hand in Brick
Bulletin – all underline the scope of his
contribution.
Mike’s retirement will not mean a
complete break with the world of brick
and we look forward to his continuing
contributions to Brick Bulletin, which
he has promised to add to his postretirement pursuits.
Michael Driver joins the team
This 28-minute educational video
programme from the University of the
West of England, made with the active
participation of the BDA, is now
available.
It explores all aspects of brick
manufacture in the UK, including
underlying geology and clay winning,
the process, forming, setting, kiln
technology and related issues such as
environmental impact. In an industry
rich in diversity, traditional handforming and open clamp firing still
have a valued place alongside the highvolume, automated factories typical of
today’s high-tech industry. All are
covered.
This is a valuable educational tool
for anyone, especially those engaged in
brickwork specification, construction
and distribution.
For price and availability, call BDA.
He comes to BDA with wide
experience of educational and practice
roles. Since 1977, he has taught at
Canterbury School of Architecture,
concurrently running a practice
undertaking educational, commercial
and residential work. His interest in
construction and the building process
prompted a specialisation in self-build.
Michael graduated from Cambridge
and worked in private practice with
David Roberts and Geoffrey Clarke in
Cambridge. He was a partner in
Cruikshank & Seward Architects,
Manchester, before moving into
architectural education.
Michael Driver MA, DipArch, RIBA
joined the BDA as senior architect
earlier this year, succeeding Michael
Hammett, who retired in April.
Like his predecessor, Michael has a
wide brief – to head BDA’s team of
architects, helping educate all sectors of
the construction industry in the
potential of brickwork, promoting best
practice in its use; to provide guidance
externally and to member companies;
to contribute to publications; to
represent the association on external
standards committees; and to comment
on proposed legislation.
BOOK REVIEW
On behalf of BDA, Michael Hammett receives the
certificate from Chris Blythe, chief executive of CIoB
Bricks and brickmaking
‘The hallmark of this book is its clarity.
The text and illustrations provide
crystal clear guidance on the science
and art of brickwork. The book
conveys a sense of the art of the
possible and illustrates some brickwork
solutions that are inspirational,
functional and elegant. Now that’s
success.’
That’s the critical review of The
BDA Guide to Successful Brick wo rk in
the Chartered Institute of Building
Literary Awards, presented in London
in March. This indispensable guide to
getting brickwork right won the Highly
Commended certificate in the Building
Process category.
Published for BDA by Arnold (now
Butterworth-Heinemann), this is
essential reading for anyone involved
with brickwork construction and
specification.
Price £ 16.99 plus £3.50 p&p from
BDA.
5
SUTHERLAND LYALL
Simply edible
Dr Sutherland Lyall is
a freelance journalist
and author of a dozen
books on architecture,
landscape and art. He
began in journalism as
buildings editor of The
Architects’ Journal,
has been editor of
several magazines
including Building
Design and is editorial
adviser to Interior
Design and Building
Photographs
1. Beechwood Hotel
2. The Circle
3. Wall, Suffolk
4. Blaise Hamlet
5. Leigh, Kent
6. Judge Instiitute
Photographers
1.John Mills
2. FWD
3. Philip Bier
4. National Trust
Photographic Library/John
Blake
5. Nigel Spreadbury
6. Martine Hamilton
Knight
6
1
W
e were on the Grand Canal in
one of those paper-sharp,
black-painted boats, the sky
above far bluer than anything
Constable had ever painted. Perfect.
I had even promised the gondolier
$5 if he promised not to sing. But by
the second bridge it had all turned to
ashes. It was the brickwork that did it.
As the house of cards collapsed, I had
to recognise that the sky was blue
because it was indeed painted – that,
although these were real Venetian
gondolas, the Grand Canal was not in
Venice but on the first floor of The
Venetian casino on Las Vegas
Boulevard in the middle of the
midwinter Mojave desert.
You might expect this kind of thing
in your local new housing estate. But
this was in a building complex so
meticulously, rigorously and
expensively recreated from measured
drawings that you gasped in disbelief at
the telling. Eighteen months earlier I’d
had a drink with the US architect in
London and seen the slides.
What blew the gondola fantasy out
of the water was the next brick arch
over this first-floor waterway. There
was not a voussoir brick in sight. The
arch was simply cut through the bricks
like a wire cutting through cheese.
Why, when the bricks were almost
certainly slips glued on to particle
board and all around was meticulously
observed repro, could they not have
bothered to get it even vaguely right?
Rules of propriety
For brickwork has its rules of
propriety. They are easy enough to
grasp, probably because there aren’t all
that many of them. So when brickwork
designers and bricklayers fail in this
way, it’s like a stick in your eye.
Bricks are small things, just small
enough to lift comfortably in one hand.
This means that, however you put them
together, they have to comply with
whatever laws of statics apply to
1
9x4 /2x3-inch building components held
apart by beds of mortar. And when
they do apply, brick can be the most
4
2
5
3
6
gloriously edible building material ever
thought of.
I have two brick reference walls
that I carry around in my head. One is
a long stretch of red Accringtons in the
restaurant of what, nearly 30 years ago,
was Runcorn’s only motel – Esso’s
Beechwood motor hotel as it was then.
Designed by the new town’s deputy
chief architect, Keith Smith, it was built
in the frenetic early ’70s building
boom, when even vaguely skilled
brickies could command small ransoms.
They had to bring a foreman
bricklayer out of retirement to supervise
the work. He soon had the surly youths
presented to him as quondam bricklayers
hanging on his every word, watching his
every trowel stroke – or so they told me.
And they produced this stunning wall of
plain brick, which I would sometimes
visit, sitting at the circular, leather-edged
bar in admiration.
More recently, there’s been CZWG’s
wonderful blue-glazed Circle in
Bermondsey and practically any
brickwork of John Outram.
Wonderful decrepitude
The other wall is – or perhaps was – a
garden wall in a leafy lane opposite a
small, smart new group of houses in
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. It was, I
think, a very old wall with what looked
like medieval or even Roman bricks at
the base, some courses of vernacular
hit-and-miss brick and flint and, on
top, a shoulder-high Georgian, possibly
Victorian, garden wall, its rambling,
sagging length supported here and there
by those massive, sloping abutments, a
wonderful decrepitude of clay, stone
and lime beneath the tangled greens of
hanging trees and wild foliage.
And it sagged. It’s one of old
brickwork’s glories, sagging. It’s
something of which any brickwork is
capable, providing it came before the
introduction of hard cement mortars
and regulations calling for massive
foundations.
Brick is the only building
material that bothers to provide us
with a diagram of the bearing capacity
of the soil on which it stands.
Oh, and chimneys. Blaise Hamlet,
on the outskirts of Bristol, has a
collection of John Nash-designed
picturesque cottages whose chimneys
are a mad brick delight: barley
sugar twisted, doubled, decorated,
demented they rise from their thatch a
knobbly, crusty metaphor of the aged
retainers for whom the village was
designed.
Immodestly, Blaise
Then, right across the country in Kent,
near Tonbridge and perhaps 40 years
later, there’s the beautifully observed fake
half-timbered and brick village of Leigh,
designed mostly by George Devey and
with chimneys quite as good. It is the
mature, near-realistic version of the
vernacular English village of which Blaise
is an early parody and which our mass
house builders fail to imitate with such
style.
Who needs ersatz Venetian
campaniles and bad brick arches when
we have such delicious pleasures as
these at our back door?
7
PUBLIC BUILDING
Cunning plan
Professor Tony Monk reports on
sustainable architecture that really
stacks up
Client
Coventry
University
Architect
Short and
Associates
Energy
consultant
IESD, De
Montfort
University,
Leicester
Minimal energy
consumption was the
leading principle in the
design of the new
Lanchester Library at
Coventry University.
Using carefully
managed natural
ventilation, passive
cooling and solar
heating as an
alternative to air
conditioning
dramatically reduces
running costs
Contractor
Totty Group
Photography
Martine
Hamilton
Knight
Paul White
I
8
t is rare for a new building to be
truly significant and develop a new
approach to design.
The new Library and Resources
Centre for Coventry University is just
such a project, however. It contains a
unique spark of originality and its
concept is likely to have a profound
influence on the design of buildings
that provide large open-plan
accommodation.
The impressive cluster of tall
towers creates a dramatic new
landmark on the Coventry skyline. Its
deep plan form manages to achieve
11,000 sq m of flexible library and
teaching space on only four floors on a
constrained site.
In addition to the exciting
sculptural architecture with compact
efficient planning, it embodies a radical
new approach to energy conservation
that reduces energy consumption to a
minimum. Like many organisations, the
university has a tight annual budget
that makes a major new building with
minor annual running costs a
compelling attraction.
This large, heavily used library and
resources centre avoids the capital and
running costs of air conditioning and
makes a significant contribution to the
development of sustainable
architecture.
Also of great relevance to
sustainability, and to lifecycle costing in
particular, is the choice of brick as the
main facing material. Brickwork has an
attractive appearance and retains its
good looks without the need for regular
cleaning or supplementary decoration.
This makes its service life costs
extremely low.
Furthermore, this advantage is
provided without the penalty of high
initial cost because brickwork is an
economic, cost-effective and versatile
form of construction.
Design and planning
The new building accommodates a
large print and electronic library
containing 350,000 books, 2,000
periodicals and media collections.
There are also learning facilities,
including a training suite and 300
computer terminals, as well as shops
and a café. This is all contained in a
flexible open-plan building, 46m square
and four storeys high, with a basement.
The towering service cores, entrance
corridor and stairs are positioned
outside the purity of this exact square
form and visually relieve its otherwise
large bulk. The volume is punctured
vertically by a glazed atrium at its
centre and four large, full-height light
wells.
The structure of the new building is
a steel frame and the principal cladding
material is facing brickwork supported
on the frame at floor levels. Smooth,
wirecut bricks are used – they are
predominantly cream coloured, but
include reds to create chevron
patterning associated with fenestrated
areas. Massive masonry walling and
small windows minimise the intrusion
of traffic noise from the elevated ring
road beyond the western boundary of
the site.
The brickwork is the outer leaf of
cavity walling that includes a 100mm
cavity filled with mineral-wool
insulation to give a U-value of 0.26.
The inner leaf is of 140mm concrete
blockwork with a plastered finish. This
construction was chosen in preference
to lightweight framing and dry lining
because the masonry’s thermal capacity
contributes to the comfort of the
building by its stabilising influence on
fluctuating temperatures inside.
The library function required deepplan flexible accommodation, but
natural ventilation in a deep-plan
building is difficult if not impossible to
achieve by means of perimeter
ventilation. This consideration, together
with the issues of noise and security
that precluded opening windows on the
building perimeter, helped generate the
eventual design, developed after several
feasibility studies by Professor Alan
Short and Professor Kevin Lomas.
It comprises an introverted 46msquare plan around a central atrium,
with supplementary light/ventilation
shafts within the building and high
brick ‘chimney stacks’ around the
perimeter that give the building its
distinctive form.
Four 6m-square light/ventilation
shafts, linked at ground level into a
plenum floor, conduct fresh air into the
building as stale air is removed via the
large central atrium and 20 ventilation
stacks around the perimeter of the
building. Heat generated by electronic
equipment and the building’s users
creates sufficient stack effect to achieve
9
the necessary air change rate for
comfort. In cold weather, heating coils
in the ground floor warm the building
and activate air movement.
The tall perimeter brick stacks
terminate in metal structures specially
designed to react to changing wind and
to allow rising air to exit without
mechanical assistance under all weather
conditions. A sophisticated electronic
management system regulates the
effects of solar gain and glare, adjusting
blinds and monitoring and controlling
the heat and lighting requirements as
well as the quality of the air and its
movement.
P e rf o rmance testing
10
The Institute of Energy and Sustainable
Development at De Montfort University
and the University of Wales School of
Architecture modelled the air
movement using computerised fluid
dynamics. Scale models were built for
testing in wind tunnels and under
artificial skies.
It is predicted that comfort
conditions will be maintained and that
temperatures will hardly ever exceed
27 o C. Furthermore, it is calculated that
energy consumption will be only 18-20
per cent of a typical air-conditioned
building.
The Lanchester Library has been
built for the same capital costs per m2
as the HEFCE normally approves for
an air-conditioned building – but, with
predicted running costs reduced by
about 80 per cent, Coventry University
will enjoy a major advantage in
meeting the annual running costs.
Interior
Internally, the large universal spaces
work well for the changing nature of
library and IT use. The open plan,
informal layout is well lit naturally by
the internal courts and the triple-decker
windows. A lofty 4.4m between floors,
circular columns, perforated steel
beams and the absence of suspended
ceilings, all contribute to a pleasant
spacious airiness in these busy
workspaces. The central atrium and the
four light wells also aid orientation in
this large floor area.
Use of the stack effect of natural air
movement is not new. This application
exploits an old principle for new energy
conservation reasons. Short and
Associates has used it previously,
notably in the De Montfort University
School of Engineering, Leicester and in
the Contact Theatre, Manchester
(featured in Brick Bulletin, autumn
1994 and summer 2000 respectively).
But in the Lanchester Library we see
the culmination of those evolving ideas.
As at Leicester and Manchester, forms
that at first sight might appear to be
decorative exuberance are in fact
derived from fundamental, functional
elements and may be regarded as
architecturally eloquent expressions of
how the building works.
The Lanchester Library and
Resources Centre strikingly
demonstrates that comfortable
accommodation is possible without
energy-hungry mechanical airconditioning. Achieving this does not
exclude good architecture, it depends
upon it. Short and Associates has
created a most impressive building that
is an excellent example of sustainable
architecture.
It was the worthy winner of the
Brick Development Association
Building of the Year Award 2000.
HOUSING
1
In Dublin’s fair city
Dublin Corporation has stalled housing’s
flight to the capital’s suburbs. Eddie
Conroy tells how
Client
Dublin
Corporation
A rc h i t e c t
Dublin
Corporation
Architects
department
Photography
Peter Barrows
Barry Mason
Eugene
Gribben
Michael
Hammett
Responsive to
changing social needs,
Dublin Corporation has
exploited a series of
well-designed
housing-infill projects
to address important
issues of urban
renewal in the Irish
capital
2
D
ublin has been described as ‘a
city of houses’ and, at its
centre, from grand Georgian
houses down to the orderly weave of
Victorian and Edwardian terraces and
villas, these houses are made of brick.
Traditionally, a variety of red bricks
and the once-ubiquitous but now
vanished Dolphins Barn brick, a
sandstone-yellow stock, allowed a
variety of building styles and urban
gestures to blend into a satisfyingly
coherent whole.
Typically, only the most subtle of
architectural moves mark these modest
houses from each other. On an autumn
evening, the long slanting light shows
to best advantage the gently modulated
colour and texture of each building
within a strong urban framework of
streets and squares. It is this subtle
dialogue that gives Dublin its modest
but memorable architectural character.
The now vibrant centre of the city
was not always as well fostered as it is
today. From the 1930s onwards,
politicians seized on the vote-grabbing
potential of building houses cheaper,
quicker and in ever greater numbers at
the city’s edge. From the 1960s a series
of disastrous and mostly unrealised
road proposals blighted their putative
routes while universities, hospitals and
other institutions drifted to the
suburbs.
Close-knit urban communities
fearing final displacement from their
traditional habitats took to the streets
to demand proper housing at the heart
of the city. From these protests arose
Dublin Corporation’s ongoing
commitment to an urban-infill
programme of housing.
These projects began when the
building of domestic accommodation in
the decaying city centre was an unlikely
venture. In this light, the choice of
brick as the primary building material
(as well as responding to context and
reducing future maintenance)
represented a firm commitment to highquality construction. These schemes,
typically deploying a range of flexible
house types to optimise brownfield and
backland sites, showed it was possible
to build well and, more importantly, to
live well in the city centre. This lesson,
reinforced by tax incentives from the
11
5
3
6
4
mid-1980s, has led to a residential
influx to the heart of Dublin that is
slowly repairing the enormous physical
and social damage inflicted in earlier
years.
Backland idyll
12
Father Kitt Court, a recent housing
project in the 1930s suburb of Crumlin,
places terraced accommodation to the
edge of a backland site, forming
controlled public spaces within, linked
in turn to the outside world.
The existing community had a longstanding wish to reinforce the village
quality of their neighbourhood and to
find physical expression for a supportive
community network. The project is
arranged as a series of linking
courtyards, rigorously composed and
centred on a community facility – the
‘town-hall’ of this metaphorical village.
The spaces created vary in size but are
carefully proportioned to their enclosing
buildings. Pinch points, emphasised by
deeply overhanging gables, mark the
transitions from space to space.
The community hall has two bold
columns gently pointing up its claim to
civic status. This building generates a
longer courtyard with a cranked end
condition (courteously acknowledging
St Agnes church beyond). Enclosure is
the primary concern here and the brick
is used to wrap the spaces created and
to establish a datum line at upperwindow sill height, formed by a distinct
but muted cornice with a brick biscuit
used as a creasing tile in a very
traditional manner.
The brick used throughout is a red
multi with a distinct, soft texture.
Detailing is simple. Only the large
window in each dwelling is allowed a
relieved brick arch. Well-detailed railings
at balconies counterpoint the stretched
quality of the long brick facades. The
evident quality of the scheme made it a
finalist in the Brick Awards 2000.
At the scale of the city
The Corporation’s infill programme has
concentrated primarily on two- and
three-storey own-door houses in the
city centre. These schemes frequently
ran into problems of scale, often failing
to match the height and massing of
larger urban neighbours. Changing
demographics and more complex living
7
9
10
1,3,5,7 Father Kitt Count
6, 8, 9, 10 Bride Street
2,4 Wolfe Tone Court
8
and family arrangements suggested the
growing importance of more
typological choice.
This tendency was reinforced by
the imperative of sustainability to
increase density and maximise land
use. The scheme at Bride Street/Golden
Lane is a particularly innovative
response to these concerns. It includes
a four-storey brick terrace on two
streets with a strong, highly modelled
corner. A large archway allows layered
views into a courtyard of two-storey
houses; in some ways a mews to the
four-storey terrace of maisonettes
fronting the street – a condition readily
comprehensible in Dublin.
Large paired access stairs,
reminiscent of New York brownstones,
set up a stately rhythm along the
street. Generous south-facing balconies
decorate the facade and encourage the
tenants to interact with the street and
enjoy the gardens of St Patrick’s
Cathedral beyond.
The height and length of the
terraces required a careful balance of
detail to ensure scale. Brick, a practical
choice to reduce maintenance, is used
tellingly to offset the adjoining Iveagh
Buildings and to warm the grey granite
of St Patrick’s Cathedral opposite.
It is a pre-mixed blend of red and
buff multis with a distinct orange hue.
Specials are used at eaves, sills and in
the elegant semi-circular arches over
entrances. Sculpted terracotta discs,
with scenes from Gulliver’s Travels
(Jonathan Swift was Dean of St
Patrick’s) add wit to the elevations.
This radical high-density scheme uses a
readily understandable built language
while avoiding the soft option of
reinstating a street frontage.
These concerns are taken a stage
further at Wolfe Tone Close on Jervis
Street. Here, an entire city block has
been constructed. The ground floor
was designed for commercial use to
enliven the adjoining streets. The fiveand six-storey high buildings follow the
site perimeter and have indented bullnosed corners at the junctions with
Parnell Street. The corners are formed
in sand-coloured reconstituted stone,
which continues as an attic storey.
The mix of stone and brick is less
sure here than in Bride Street: the
poorly proportioned balcony panels and
vertical ‘structural’ stripes weaken
rather than order the long brick
elevations. On Wolfe Tone Street, the
block rather agreeably defers to the
street, creating a lunette-shaped
suntrap. Adjoining, a city-scaled
stairway leads under a giant arch into
the secluded, but still public, courtyard
beyond. This is a confident and
meaningful piece of place-making.
The courtyard is informal, with
powerful brick terraces on two sides,
articulated and colonised by generous
balconies and stairways. The other
sides, rendered in a yellow ochre, step
down in height to ensure maximum
sunlight penetration. The brick is a preblended mix of red, buff and orange
multis, producing a satisfying effect.
The project’s mixed use encourages
street life. Adherence to the urban
scale and street pattern reinforces
enclosure and quality, while the clear
linkage between the courtyard and the
city beyond promotes integration
between existing and new.
There is political and public
pressure to move away from the
considerable achievement of such
schemes into the comfortable, if
illusory simplicity of two and threestorey houses and gardens.
Such a step (rooted only in
nostalgia, for it fails to address the
real, changing needs of the people and
the city) would betray the honourable
role Dublin Corporation has forged in
ensuring that public housing has a
proud and useful part to play in the
story of Dublin city.
13
OFFICE BUILDING
Dressed to kill
Deborah Singmaster inspects
full-blooded modernist style in Surrey
Client
Gullane and
Quintain
Architect
Stiff+Trevillion
Structural
engineer
Anthony Wells
Contractor
Barnes and
Elliott
Photographers
Alan Williams
Michael
Hammett
Clarke House in
Egham, Surrey,
demonstrates that
brick cladding can be
used to satisfy local
conservationists and
produce a commercial
building attractive to
companies seeking
elegant, highly
contemporary
premises
E
gham in Surrey is becoming an
attractive out-of-London office
location. A case in point is Clarke
House, a speculative joint venture
between developers Gullane and
Quintain and designed by Stiff +
Trevillion. Heathrow Airport and the
M25 are nearby and there is an
efficient rail service from the town to
Waterloo and the City.
The architect’s first design proposed
a ‘white-panelled, Meieresque box’ but
at a final planning meeting the
conservation officer insisted on a
pitched roof and red brick facades, in
keeping with the local vernacular.
Ancient precedents
14
Architect Andy Trevillion agrees that
brick is an appropriate choice for
Egham, given its many historic
associations. Runnymede, where Magna
Carta was sealed, is just down the
road. Most local housing is red brick
and nearby Royal Holloway College
offers a resplendent anglicised red brick
version of the Chateau de Chambord.
The Clarke House site once housed
an abattoir. Clarkes Butchers, facing on
to the High Street, was part of the
contract and has been converted into a
pizzeria. Pig’s Lane used to wind
between outhouses to the abattoir at
the back. By clearing away these
outhouses, Stiff+Trevillion made space
for an attractive courtyard with fixed
seats and newly planted trees. This
courtyard forms part of a right of way
connecting Egham High Street to the
large public car park behind and is
glazing. First floor portrait-format
windows are set back half a brick
width.
Wider second-storey windows, set
back a full brick width, give precedence
and transparency to this top floor, in
contrast to the gradual reduction of
window size towards the top of a
conventional, classically proportioned
brick building.
There are no expressed sills or lintel
dressings; the openings simply punch
through the brick skin. The steel lintel
to the top-storey windows is painted
black and left exposed behind the edge
of the cladding. A fillet of powdercoated steel folds over the eaves as a
coping and the facade brickwork is
restrained at roof level by a visible steel
ring beam.
Descriptive glazing
Windows are aluminium framed except
for those facing the north boundary.
The frames are steel and glazing is fire
rated to one hour. The window
arrangement here is identical to that on
the front elevation but at the rear of
the building, instead of detached
concrete columns, the structural
supporting pier is concealed behind
brickwork. Ground floor glazing on the
rear wall is broken into two large
windows, with mullions positioned to
form a middle panel where brick piers
would have been used in solid
brickwork.
An additional wing, raised on piloti
to allow car access to the rear of the
pizzeria, extends to the east of the
entrance elevation, forming one arm of
the right-angled plan. The WCs and
staircase are placed in the shadowed
angle of the plan, with small horizontal
windows indicating the WCs on stair
landings.
Variation without frills
used and enjoyed by shoppers on a
daily basis.
Modernist approach
As committed modernists, the approach
of Stiff+Trevillion was to treat the brick
as a contemporary ‘machined’ cladding,
in stretcher bond with struck pointing.
Andy Trevillion wanted ‘a precise
wirecut brick with a sharp arris
showing’. He also wanted to emphasise
the non-structural function of the
cladding: brick as skin.
Since the interior of the concreteframe building had already been
designed using a 6m grid (for optimal
subdivision of offices), adopting brick
for the exterior meant revising
drawings in order to reconcile the brick
module with the grid and adjusting
facade openings so that they matched
brick dimensions.
Externally, the route of Pig’s Lane
and the underlying medieval street
pattern is hinted at by a meandering
ribbon of Indian Sandstone, which
weaves its way across the regularly laid
paving slabs of the courtyard. Another
reference to the past lies in the choice
of brick colour and red-pigmented
mortar – ‘bright red, like blood’, says
Trevillion.
Topsy turvy facades
The arrangement of the elevations
establishes an unconventional vertical
hierarchy. The ground floor is fully
glazed along the west-facing front and
north-facing elevations, with structural
concrete columns set forward from the
The few departures from the overall
uniformity of the brickwork at Clarke
House are used effectively. Screen walls
defining the entrance are stack bonded
and stand out against the stretcherbonded front facade. A raised
flowerbed running around the base of
the building is contained by a brick
wall capped with brick-on-edge: this
has been planted with bushy evergreen
shrubs.
Even the brick wall surrounding the
car park, with inset railings, has been
carefully detailed and finished.
Trevillion has high praise for
contractor Barnes and Elliott. ‘Design
and build, which this job was, has an
appalling reputation for quality,’ he
says. ‘But these days there’s a
partnership between ourselves and the
contractor and they were instrumental
throughout in trying to maintain the
quality of the project.’
15
HOUSING
Room with a view – or two
Sue Duncan visits award-winning
housing in London’s Docklands
Client
Wates Built
Homes
Architect
David
Richmond and
Partners
Contractor
Wates Built
Homes
Photography
Morley von
Sternberg
David
Richmond
With three Canary
Wharf towers on one
side and the
Millennium Dome on
the other, this modern
residential
development at
Blackwall Basin has
views to die for. But
far from being
overawed by its
powerful neighbours,
it has its own way of
making an impact and
yellow stock
brickwork makes a
major contribution
B
16
ack in the mid-1980s, developer
Wates Built Homes acquired this
0.86 ha site at Blackwall Basin in
London’s Docklands. But the troubled
economic waters that succeeded the
boom years consigned it to the flotilla
of projects riding at anchor pending
better times.
Architect David Richmond and
Partners had looked at the site for
Wates in the late 1980s but it was not
until 1993 that the practice was asked
to draw up planning proposals.
Doubtless the subsequent decision to
build the Millennium Dome smack
opposite gladdened a few hearts.
The site is a long and narrow
one lying in the Coldharbour
Conservation Area, which includes a
number of Grade II listed Georgian
buildings such as Isle House and
Nelson House.
From its southern boundary of
Manager Street, it is tucked between
architecture together at the waterfront.
The scale, forms and massing and
materials create an impression of
permanence and security, sympathetic
to its close neighbours. Indeed, Isle
House was the muse for the materials
palette – so yellow and yellow multistock brickwork predominates. The
same is true of many design details –
brick plinth, steps, window proportions
and eaves details have been
reinterpreted effectively in the new
development.
The garden square
the busy thoroughfare of Prestons Road
to the west and Coldharbour to the
east. At its northern end, the plot
extends out to the Thames along both
sides of the Blackwall Lock.
Blackwall Basin was originally built
in 1800 to help tow in ships through to
West India Docks and the narrow street
pattern that emerged between the basin
and the river helped establish the grain
and support the densities of the scheme
that emerged.
Organisation
The development provides three threebedroom penthouses, 57 two-bedroom
and 13 one-bedroom flats, and six twobedroom mews houses organised
around a new garden courtyard, the
lock sides and a new urban square.
This paved square created in front
of the Georgian Isle House (designed in
1825 by Sir John Rennie as the
Dockmaster’s House) is the hub of the
scheme, linking the old and new
Maximum space and sunlight
penetration have been teased out of the
narrow site by creating a gated square
along its north-south axis, stretched
east as far as humanly possible. At its
centre is a sunny garden overlooked
from the west by a terrace of fourstorey apartment blocks turning their
backs to the busy Prestons Road, and
from the east by three-storey mews
houses backing on to Coldharbour.
Garages are tucked in at ground level
behind a colonnade.
In the apartment blocks, the
living/dining rooms enjoy a dual aspect
unusual for high-density schemes:
17
18
double-aspect bays and deep-set
balconies look on to the square while
dining-area windows face west on to
Prestons Road. Blocks are linked with
recessed lantern staircase towers that
also help articulate the terraces. On the
public Prestons Road frontage,
alternating with the indented
dining-area sections, the rhythm they
set up is specially apparent at night
when the timber structure of the roofs
is uplit and visible through the
clerestory glazing.
The modelling is very pronounced
on the Coldharbour elevations of the
mews houses, where rusticated plinths
rise to first-floor level. The rustication
– six courses of stretcher bond
brickwork followed by a recessed
course of header bricks – is further
punctuated by blind windows to the
garages behind, producing attractive
shadow lines as you proceed up this
narrowest of streets.
Above plinth level, the brickwork
changes to a lighter, plain yellow stock
– as does Isle House, which, when
cleaned had revealed lighter brickwork
above a darker plinth. The rustication
is a new introduction and you
encounter it throughout – often rising a
full four storeys, enriching the texture
and contrasting with stretcher bond
brickwork.
The locksides
The tight passage of Coldharbour has
an undeniably dockside ambience, but
it’s only as you emerge from it and the
confined views open out over the lock
towards the river that the sense of
waterfront really impacts.
Blocks of one- and two-bedroom
flats are arranged north and south of
the entrance lock where the scheme’s
presence on that powerful Canary
Wharf-Millennium Dome axis is
announced by nine- and seven-storey
penthouse towers commanding the river
entrance.
Height was an issue but the towers
survived protest relatively unscathed,
only two floors being lopped from the
downstream tower. In fact, the
development is height-sensitive. In the
close confines of Coldharbour it steps
down from four to three storeys and,
elsewhere, brickwork gives way to
rendering for the top floor,
simultaneously tying the brickwork to a
uniform line and reducing the apparent
overall height.
Brick elevations in the lock area are
in a mixture of plain and rusticated
brickwork. Vertical cedarboard
cladding to the full height of the
towers’ upstream elevations is
weathering attractively, reflecting the
colours of the reconstructed stone sills
and rendering.
The response to the site preserves
the ethos of old dockside housing and
street grain, balancing a sense of
enclosure with dramatic views of river,
docks and iconic architectural
neighbours.
While respecting the extant
Georgian buildings of the Coldharbour
Conservation Area, the development
has created modern, well-proportioned
architecture free of tweeness and
gimmickry. These factors commended it
to the 2000 Brick Awards assessors,
who voted it winner in the Private
Housing category. All units have been
snapped up, so it’s proved popular with
purchasers too.
RELIGIOUS BUILDING
Church triumphant
George Demetri reports on a church
with a very ecumenical response to
architectural influences
Client
Roman
Catholic
Parish of
Tring
Architect
Anthony
Delarue
Associates
Structural
engineer
Robert Tucker
Associates
The market town of
Tring has a new
church that
incorporates parts of a
former building to
provide historical
continuity. Displaying
a mastery of
brickwork detailing, it
also makes
considerable
architectural and
symbolic contributions
to the locality
Main contractor
EW Rayment
& Co
Photography
Nigel
Spreadbury
A
rchitecturally, you don’t get
much these days for a modest
£440,000. Yet the Roman
Catholic Parish of Tring has landed an
intriguing new church that not only
fulfills its liturgical requirements, but
includes an abundance of history and
symbolism too – and the craftsmanship
it displays is simply superb.
Completed in November 1999 after
about a year in construction, the
Church of Corpus Christi in the
charming market town of Tring,
Hertfordshire, has been designed by
Anthony Delarue Associates.
The architect has shown a thorough
understanding of brickwork detailing,
as well as a wide range of historic,
religious and symbolic sources. The
result is a rich visual experience as
Romanesque, Classical and Byzantine
influences intermingle.
The Victorian ethos is present in the
polychromatic brickwork and
meticulous attention to detail and, if it
all has a strong Arts and Crafts flavour,
19
it is the inevitable result of using
traditional materials on a small,
typically English scale.
The new church replaces its
Edwardian predecessor, which the client
was reluctant to see completely
demolished. Thus, the tabernacle and
gable walls and the campanile on the
front elevation have all been
incorporated into the new design, while
the eight-sided apse and one arcade of
the original Edwardian chapel have
been rebuilt.
The plan can be broadly identified
as that of an early Christian basilica,
with an interesting geometry added by
an eight-sided baptistery and a sacristy
whose irregular shape is determined by
the site boundary.
Exterior
20
The external massing of the building is
dominated by the tower formed over
the crossing, with a pyramidal roof of
handmade clay tiles and elegant paletinted clerestory. Jostling for position
next to this are the former gable and
campanile, although the latter has been
heightened with a louvred top.
The architect inherited this
collection and the truncated left hand
side of the Edwardian gable
unfortunately spoils what would
otherwise be an equilateral triangle –
an element normally symbolising the
perfection of the Holy Trinity.
Romanesque elements, such as the
semi-circular arched windows made of
three courses of header bricks, take
their inspiration from the former chapel
and are integrated into a classical
framework comprising vertical
subdivisions that suggest pedestal,
shaft, capital and entablature. Walls reuse the fine Luton grey bricks of the
old presbytery and are supplemented by
new matching bricks, as well as
handmade reds.
A Byzantine reference is seen on the
pilasters, with their alternate banding of
red brick and cream-coloured fair-faced
blockwork. A continuous garland of
roses above the arched window heads
Award-winning craftmanship: an appreciation by Bob Baldwin
One is prepared for music inside a
church, but the new brickwork of
Corpus Christi sings to you as you
stand outside and gaze at it.
The professional pride felt by the
bricklayer in building the in-situ
facework arches, setting cornice bricks
and other specials both internally and
externally and creating a ‘Roman’
door detail while embracing
diaphragm wall construction, shines
out of this building. Great care has
been taken to space out arch bricks to
an equal number either side of the
central key bricks.
looks deceptively like terracotta, but is
in fact very fine clay brick. This was
preferred to terracotta, which was
deemed more suited to an urban setting.
The building combines detailing
that is either subtle or highly evident.
Subtle is the simple keystone detail to
the small window on the bell tower,
comprising two courses of splayed
stretcher bricks. More forceful are the
battlements added to a section of the
Notice the parallel mortar joint
between arch rings and the sensitive
cutting of brick courses, where these
intersect the extrados, giving another,
near-parallel, semi-circular mortar
joint around every arch in this
building.
All facework mortar joints were
raked-out each day in preparation for
a separate pointing operation after
completion of the facework. This was
worked from the top down using a
variety of joint finishes (flush, slightly
recessed and struck), with care taken
throughout to emphasise brick
rear elevation. Theses additions are
designed to suggest a fortified
dimension to the sacristy, which is used
to store valuables.
Interior
Entrance to the narthex of the church is
via a distinctly classical doorway,
inspired by houses in the Roman Forum
that the architect had measured as a
student. The continuous brick arcade
bonding at internal angles by pointing
left and right at these junctions.
A bricklayer never forgets working
on a job such as Corpus Christi, where
bringing to life the architect’s ideas
make it a pleasure go to work each
day.
Bob Baldwin is president of the Guild
of Bricklayers and was a judge for the
2000 Brick Awards, in which Corpus
Christi took the Best Craftsmanship
Award. The judges were impressed by
the consistently high standards
maintained in a variety of challenging
details throughout the construction.
surrounding the nave and sanctuary
emphasises the basilica plan. Brickwork
is exposed throughout the interior,
whether for walls or piers. The
exuberant detailing, so characteristic of
the outside, is mostly toned down to
flat, unadorned surfaces on the inside.
Even so, considerable warmth is
imparted by the red string courses on
the piers and aisle walls. The ambience
is enhanced by low winter sunshine,
tinted by the rose, lilac and yellow
panes of the clerestory glazing.
The combination of brickwork and
timber is particularly effective. Stout
trusses of stained European redwood
support the nave roof, while aisle roofs
have a simple exposed beam structure
to support their low pitches. More
dramatic is the roof structure of the
tower, comprising a hierarchy of king
and queen posts and diagonal bracing
to form a symbolic ‘crown’ directly
above the altar.
Yet all these diverse elements
somehow come together to form a rich
tapestry of architectural and
ecclesiastical history that is just waiting
to be unravelled by the observant eye.
This may take some time but, like any
good work, repays the effort.
21
HOUSING
Solar system
Robin Wilson reports on an outbreak of
modernism in Gloucestershire
Clients
Tewkesbury
Borough
Council and
Gloucester
Housing
Association
Architect
Cater Day Ltd
Contractor
Pearce
Construction
(Midlands)
Photography
Nigel Green
Darren Cater’s
energy-efficient
housing aims to
provide an alternative
to mass-production,
‘neo-Victorgian’
housing schemes.
It is all a question
of integrity
22
T
he site of a new social-housing
project by Gloucestershire-based
architect Darren Cater could be
said to lie at the frontier of the
changing topographies of small-town
England.
Enclosing it on three sides are
extensive ‘executive’ housing schemes –
the all-too-inflexible solution to
housing need that has taken up vast
belts of greenfield land in the country.
To the west of Cater’s project is a
flood plain, which, at the time of the
project’s completion in November
2000, was under water thanks to
backflow from the swollen rivers
Severn and Avon. Beyond that is the
town of Tewkesbury – the massive
limestone tower of its Norman abbey
clearly visible.
The design was chosen in an open
competition run by Tewkesbury
Borough Council’s planning
department. Energy efficiency,
communal interaction, ‘lifetime’
adaptability and progressive rather than
retro approaches to styling formed the
basic premise of the brief.
The chosen solution is a strong
synthesis of architecture and
engineering. The requirements of
domesticity and medium-density living
are expressed here as a hard-edged
system.
Terrace as solar machine
There has been no specific referencing
of previous architectural forms, which
must be a first for a major nonindustrial project in Tewkesbury since
the 1960s. But the project could be
seen as a meditation on and evolution
of the brick terrace. Cater has shifted,
extracted and juggled with its
symmetries and repetition.
Brick returns, then, not as the
levelling medium of uniformity but as a
particular texture and tone, as one
planar surface in a lively play of
interrelated surfaces: brick, wood,
render, glass, metal. Windows slide to
the edges of facades and wrap around
corners, or up to meet the asymmetrical
pitch of a roof; rainwater guttering and
downpipes become crisp metallic
articulations that accentuate and
further diversify the geometric play.
All 15 units (arranged in three
terraces) have built-in steel and glass
conservatory spaces, allowing the
exposed brick surfaces to take on both
interior and exterior roles, and to
provide the backdrop for the seasonal
expansion of the household into these
intermediate areas between the private
and the communal space.
Of double height, the conservatories
make for expressive, functionalist
forms, but their actual usage seems
somewhat ambiguous, caught between
utility and leisure space. Indeed, the
word ‘conservatory’ might have the
wrong connotations. Rather, they could
be seen as a development of the front
porch, an expansion of that threshold
structure so as to become a room of
itself.
Or we might dispense with all
comparisons to usual domestic spaces
and simply call these glazed volumes
solaria. This would be consistent with
the fact that the project has been
moulded largely by the desire to
maximise the use of solar energy. There
is a strong coincidence between the
requirements of passive heat transfer
and the creation of dynamic, interior
spatial relationships.
On the north terrace, the kitchen
windows wrap around the corners of
the brick towers at the lower level to
face both the exterior and the interior
of the solaria. On the east and west
terraces, this role has been transferred
to the first-floor bedroom windows.
All the units also open out on to
their solaria from the first-floor
landings. The panels, which provide
energy for hot water, are embedded
into the stainless steel sections of the
roofing on the north terrace and on the
south-facing tiles of the east and west.
This amounts to a convincing
modulation and mixing of design
elements.
The terrace house has been
converted into solar machine with an
authority that would suggest such
projects have been the norm in Britain
for years. The one downside to the
requirements of solar orientation is the
comparative blandness of the shadier
facades of the estate.
Integration
A textured orange-red multi brick
manufactured nearby was chosen, both
for the purposes of integration and
energy efficiency in the logistics phase.
The bricks are laid exclusively in
stretcher bond. This linearity is in
keeping with the purism of the overall
project, but use of the medium is not
without expression.
At the site’s eastern edge, the
stretcher bond has turned serpentine to
form a ‘crinkle-crankle’ wall. This
successfully reduces the dogma of the
solid division while maintaining privacy
for the gardens. It is also a fitting
symbol of the potentially uneasy
boundary between the rented property
within and the privately owned housing
without.
Cater’s project has a functionalist
sobriety and, above all, a strong grasp
of the basic, common sense realities of
contemporary housing provision. It
combines an active encouragement of
communal interaction with high levels
of energy efficiency through the
common denominators of light and
transparency. It also demonstrates how
a strong adherence to functionalism is
not at odds with assimilating new
forms into a context as sensitive as the
English abbey town.
It’s rather sad that such modernism,
widespread throughout Europe, is as
rare as hens’ teeth in this country.
23
STRUCTURAL BRICKWORK
Music to the eyes
George Demetri sings the praises of a
new music room
Client
Haberdashers’
Monmouth
School for
Girls
Architect
Victoria Perry
Architecture
Structural
engineer
Andrew Smith
Consulting
Engineers
Main contractor
George Adams
& Sons
Acoustic
consultant
Arup
Acoustics
Photography
Jack Tait
Andrew Smith
A contemporary music
pavilion for a girls’
school in Monmouth
not only solved
awkward site and
aesthetic problems
with style but also
struck a chord with
Brick Award judges for
its structural use of
brick
I
nterpreting architecture in ways the
architect never intended is an easy
trap in which to fall. So it is very
tempting to see some parts of the
almost monastic, white, curvedceilinged interior of the new music
pavilion at Haberdashers Monmouth
School for Girls as vaguely reminiscent
of Le Corbusier’s Chapel at Ronchamp.
But this was not Victoria Perry’s
intention when she set out to design a
modern building in a very traditional
setting. She does, however, admit to
being influenced by the genius of Alvar
Aalto.
Yet the monastic atmosphere that
has resulted could not be better suited
to the studious contemplation of
musical harmonies, enhanced by
spectacular views of the hills in
Monmouthshire. The pupils of
Haberdashers have a well-designed and
equipped music facility to ensure their
talents are nurtured to the full.
Background
24
Haberdashers is a charitable trust
comprising a total of seven private
schools that provide secondary
education in England and Wales.
The school for girls in Monmouth
wanted to extend its music department
to provide much-needed concert and
recording facilities. Although originally
keen on an extension, the architect
persuaded the school board to opt for a
separate, free-standing pavilion. The
result speaks for itself.
But the site presented a few
obstacles: steeply sloping and
surrounded by traditional buildings in
brick and stone, it also lies smack bang
within a conservation area. Local
conservationists wanted something
along traditional lines, but the architect
once again argued successfully for a
contemporary building, much of which
would be set snugly into the steep slope
to minimise the bulk.
As a result, the smart little pavilion
has a Tardis-like effect on visitors, who
may be surprised at just how much
interior space has been accommodated
within a modest volume. As well as the
main rehearsal chamber, a recording
studio, lobby, kitchenette, store and
WC have been provided.
Although designed in a modern
idiom, the £262,000 project is built of
traditional, solid, loadbearing
brickwork laid in English garden wall
bond, a wall construction common in
Monmouth. Apart from the part-glazed
elevation to the terrace, the most
obvious concession to modernity is the
curving stainless steel roof, a form
reflecting the slope of the hillside and
alluding to the curves on grand pianos
and other instruments.
Structure
The building is a basic 20m x 12m
brick box with one side partially
glazed. To resist the forces from the
slope on the higher side, the rear wall is
a solid, two-brick-thick retaining wall
reinforced by mild-steel bars set in
concrete-grouted pockets. It reduces in
section to one-and-a-half bricks above
ground level.
Because of reduced ground
pressures, flank elevations required
thinner wall sections, although wall
thicknesses are increased on the glazed
elevation to accommodate padstones
and rainwater pipes and to achieve
fortress-like deep reveals. Frames set
well back from the outer face of the
brickwork further enhance this effect.
Although loadbearing brickwork is
the main structural element, the overall
structure is best described as hybrid:
where steel roof beams terminate above
the 3.2m uninterrupted ground-to-eaves
glazing, they are supported by the
slenderest of rolled hollow steel
sections, which form elegant pilotis
immediately in front of the glazing.
The use of stainless steel standingseam roofing on woodwool slabs
necessitated the construction of two
drips or steps in the roof slope. While
this in itself is not a problem, it has
resulted in a rather clumsy detail at the
junction with the black-painted ply
fascias, chosen because of budgetary
constraints that disallowed the stainless
steel fascias originally intended.
Brickwork
Soft, hydraulic lime mortar in the solid
wall construction used throughout was
designed to obviate the need for
movement joints and the sometimes
tricky detailing normally associated
with cavity wall construction.
However, the type of lime mortar
used took longer to set than originally
anticipated, causing some delays in the
job’s progression. Although a
pozzolanic additive subsequently cured
the problem, it also resulted in an
intense, white-coloured mortar that has
now started to tone down.
The adjacent old stable block
provided the reference for the
brickwork: the Brick Development
Association provided guidance on local
brickworks producing similar red
bricks. This was fortuitous because the
client had expressed the desire that
materials should be sourced locally
wherever possible.
As most of the brickwork is
relatively straightforward, there are few
specials: tapered soldiers form the flat
arches above the door and slot window
openings, while the solid bricks used to
form the crisp, flush window sill details
have a sloped upper face to facilitate
drainage. Queen closers are also
incorporated near changes of direction
to maintain bond.
Internal
It is a measure of just how ingrained
cavity-wall construction has become
that the local authority was at first
wary of traditional solid brickwork due
to the risk of water penetration to the
inside face.
But it eventually approved a
construction involving a 29mm
insulation board with integral vapour
barrier applied to the inside face of the
brickwork. This was overlaid by timber
studs at 300mm centres, on to which
two layers of plasterboard and skim
were applied to achieve the required
acoustic reverberation. This complete
wall build-up achieved a U-value of
0.42.
The sweeping curve of the dramatic
ceiling is brought to life by the light
entering through the clerestory window.
The all-pervading whiteness is tempered
by the locally sourced oak floor,
contributing to the pavilion’s overall
serenity and inspirational ambience.
25
REFURBISHMENT
Romantic renaissance
Deborah Singmaster falls for the Ikon
Gallery
Client
Brindleyplace
plc
Architect
Levitt
Bernstein
Structural
engineer
Peel & Fowler
Contractor
Tarmac (now
Carillion)
The refurbishment of
the Ikon Gallery in
Birmingham is the
stuff of romantic
fiction, the tale of a
typical neo-Gothic
Victorian school
rescued from
dereliction and
transfomred into a
vibrant modern art
gallery
Cleaning
consultant
Adriel
Consultancy
Tower
reinstatement
WBM
Restoration
Photography
Martine
Hamilton
Knight
I
26
f architecture were fiction, the Ikon
Gallery would be one of its bestloved characters.
Here is a decorative Victorian
redbrick school playing a pivotal role
among a cast of chunky nouveaux
brick-faced offices. Its ornate exterior
conceals a steel frame capable of
supporting massive floor loads and its
mission is to exhibit cutting-edge art
and provide the citizens of Birmingham
with an enlightened fine arts education
programme.
Three groups are behind the success
of the gallery, one of the first projects
to be granted National Lottery funding
and winner of the Refurbishment
category in last year’s Brick Awards:
the City of Birmingham, the developer
Argent and architect Levitt Bernstein.
Gradual decline
The gallery was originally Oozells
Street School, designed by Birmingham
practice Martin & Chamberlain and
built in 1877. In 1964, the tower was
pronounced unsafe and had to be
removed. By the early 1990s, when
developer Argent began regenerating
the 8ha plot surrounding the building
as the new Brindleyplace, the school
was derelict, protected from demolition
only by its Grade II listing. Birmingham
City Council insisted that Argent repair
and secure the fabric of the school.
The refurbishment programme fell
into two contracts, both under the
direction of Levitt Bernstein. The first
was purely for repair of the fabric, the
second for conversion into new
quarters for The Ikon Gallery.
Painstaking investigation
The original brick was quite soft. It had
absorbed the grime of its industrial
setting for more than a century and was
literally black in places. Project
architect Paul Clark went round
tapping each individual brick to
discover which were ‘blown’ and which
still sound. Engineering analysis
established that brick strengths varied
widely, a discovery that led to the
decision to insert a steel frame inside
the external brick shell.
Levitt Bernstein sourced more than
15,000 second-hand bricks for the
project. The amount of repair and
patching, adding and dismantling that
had taken place through the school’s
history meant that the elevations were
already a patchwork. The presence of
white glazed bricks at the rear indicates
that there had once been an inner
courtyard; some of these bricks had to
be replaced, a delicate operation
because of the danger of chipping.
Ornamentation
The Gothic elevations were heavily
ornamented with string courses,
elaborate coping details, arched
openings with rope reveals, decorative
basketweave or herringbone brick
panels and, in the later extension,
terracotta surrounds to doors and
windows. Many of these specials had to
be replaced and one entire front gable
was rebuilt.
The new specials are most easily
identified where the sills of the
windows to the cafe were lowered to
ground level. Martin & Chamberlain
had used terracotta frames and lintels
on openings in the later rear extension;
Levitt Bernstein copied this feature in
its new openings. The new main
entrance and the imposing internal
doorway leading from the reception
area to the glazed lift enclosure have
terracotta reveals indistinguishable
from their 1890s counterparts. But the
terracotta voussoirs above the main
entrance are novel, curved in plan and
hung off the new interior structure.
About 42 different types of special
were made for the project; the
quantities required of each varied from
ten to 550.
Gentle approach
A key to achieving homogeneity,
despite the wide range of brick colour
present, lay in the specialist cleaning
operation, directed by Nicola Ashurst
of the Adriel Consultancy.
‘Her way was to do it as gently as
possible,’ says Paul Clark. ‘She used a
diluted spray and knew when to stop.
Areas of stone and brick are still dirty
in places, but that’s part of the
building’s history.’
The pointing also provides visual as
well as literal bonding. Like the
original pointing, it is a forgiving flush
joint ideal for disguising small
blemishes and marginal size differences;
it was also appropriate for use with the
soft original brick, which lacked a
sharp arris.
The tower
Six months after the conversion
contract was under way, a European
grant made possible the reinstatement
of the tower. Towers were regular
features of Martin and Chamberlain
schools as a means of improving
classroom ventilation; the building had
never looked right without its tower.
‘Without it there was a dreadful
stump,’ says Paul Clark.
The only evidence for the tower’s
appearance was two old photographs
and a drawing made shortly before its
removal. Mungo Park, the site architect
responsible for the tower
reconstruction, regularly checked from
the same point where one of the
photographs had been taken that the
rising replica matched the original.
No attempt was made to disguise
the junction between the surviving base
of the tower and the new top. It rests
on a light steel frame, placed on top of
the reinforced concrete lining to the
entrance stairwell, which takes all
loading directly to the ground.
The brickwork panels beneath the
finials are fluted, a feature of other
Martin & Chamberlain schools but not
found elsewhere at the Ikon. Straight
runs of rope reveals to the lancet
windows were re-cast from moulds
already used for the main building.
String courses were also repeated,
but new specials were required for the
apex reveals and towards the base of
the louvred openings where the rope
reveals terminate in canted tapering
darts.
The finials were produced at the
last minute by a potter in Cornwall and
had to be collected hot from the kiln to
get them back to site in time for the
official opening. What a fitting end to a
tale of architectural romance and
derring-do.
27
LABORATORY BUILDING
It all adds up at Strathclyde
Frank Arneil Walker gives full marks for
well-integrated diversity
Client
University of
Strathclyde,
Glasgow
Project Manager
University of
Strathclyde
Estate
Management
Architect
Reiach and
Hall
S t ru c t u r a l
engineer
Ove Arup and
Partners
Main contractor
HBGGA
Construction
Photography
Keith Hunter
The stunning solar
walls of Strathclyde
University’s Institute of
Biomedical Sciences is
only one aspect of a
teaching and research
building where the
carefully considered
design of the parts is
paramount
28
L
aboratory buildings present the
designer with a notoriously
difficult brief.
More than any other building type,
they demand the careful integration of
plan, structure and frequently complex
services, yet often call for loose-fit
flexibility.
When these requirements are
combined with the contextual problems
of a site located at the heart of a
downtown university campus, which is
all too evidently the agglutinative
consequence of several decades of
development plans and architectural
fashions, the task is intimidating.
Faced with this challenge at the
Institute for Biomedical Sciences for the
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow,
architect Reiach and Hall has created a
building where, perversely, the sum of
the parts is greater than the whole.
Campus context
The layout concept responds to
guidelines set in the university’s
development plan of 1988, in particular
the call for a series of linear buildings
along the north edge of the campus.
Accordingly, the institute’s spine of
laboratory accommodation runs eastwest, parallel to Cathedral Street, but is
set back to allow a generous service
forecourt. At its eastern end, the new
four-storey building links north in an
L-plan relationship with the existing
Todd Centre on Taylor Street. Shared
administration offices, lecture rooms
and social areas are introduced in a sixstorey tower located in the knuckle
junction where the two buildings meet.
Rising to the south is a green inner
landscape, a collegiate garden bounded
on the ridge by the long, bay-windowed
wall of the university’s School of
Architecture.
Laboratory spine
The planning of the laboratory spine is
simple. The laboratories themselves,
used for teaching on the lower levels
and research above, are kept to the
south side of a central corridor. They
are fully glazed, enjoying the view
across lawns and trees. Ancillary
support spaces and staircases are
ranged along the north side of the spine
and the wall to the Cathedral Street
yard is in stack-bonded, smooth red
brickwork.
The structural system is less
straightforward, however. Whereas to
the north of the corridor a steel frame
has been adopted ‘due to geotechnical
problems’, on the south beams and
floors are constructed in concrete.
Here, the frame is arranged in an
‘iambic’ modular rhythm (a-b-a-b- and
so on), which not only permits
flexibility in the sizing of the columnfree laboratories but also eases the
distribution of necessarily complex
servicing. The thermal mass of this
exposed concrete frame soaks up
daytime heat loads and cools at night.
The low tower forming the link
with the Todd Centre is built in smooth
blue brickwork. The plan is roughly
square but curves at the north-east
corner, where a stairwell entrance,
leading to the teaching and research
spine, recesses against the south end of
the existing building.
On each floor, academic offices are
grouped around central social spaces
except at the lowest level, which is
taken up by a 250-seat lecture room
oriented on a diagonal axis to the
south-east corner of the plan. This
corner, too, is rounded, the impact of
its bold external curve intensified by
the sharp angular projection of a fully
glazed emergency staircase.
From Taylor Street, a pedestrian
route leads round this dramatic corner
into the green courtyard and continues
west alongside the laboratory spine.
Solar wall
Fronting this long, south-facing
elevation is a double-skinned clearglazed solar wall, in effect a corridorwidth transparent duct applied to the
face of the building from sill height at
the lowest level to sill height at the
highest.
Dropping vertically within this
peripheral zone is a series of tubular
fresh-air supply ducts clad in stainless
steel and progressively diminished in
diameter as they enter the narrower
structural bays at each laboratory
ceiling. These ducts fall from a long
header duct at eaves height which runs
along the skyline.
At the top of the solar wall, below a
deep parapet of smooth red bricks,
continuous adjustable louvres control
the stack-effect ventilation. At each
level, inside and outside the outer skin
of Planar glass, a galvanised steel
walkway grille permits access for
cleaning and maintenance while acting
as a brise soleil.
Opening windows are provided
along the internal skin. In addition to
the passive low-energy advantages of a
design solution that reduces heat loss
and ensures a controlled regime of
natural ventilation, the double-skin
wall provides added protection from
the weather. Since the solar wall is fully
glazed, any reduction in the amount of
light entering the laboratories from the
south is only marginal. Moreover, by
revealing the shiny lineaments of the
building’s environmental strategy, the
wall’s transparent depth creates a
refined techno-aesthetic well suited to a
university proud of its technological
distinction.
Design in bits
This exciting wall is memorable. Yet it
is a singular architectural event,
understandably specific to its
orientation and environmental
intention.
Other parts of the building have
their separate characters. The north
elevation is industrial: a cliff of red
brick under a rooftop plant room
walled in patent glazing. The comer
tower is commercial: a small office
block built in purplish-blue brick. The
existing Todd Centre, no less officelike, is in rustic brown brick.
Certain design tactics are employed
in an attempt to bind the disparate
elements of the building together. The
brickwork is flush-pointed. On all
fronts, windows are conceived as long
horizontal bands of glazing. There are
no reveals; window frames are brought
to the outer surface of the brickwork to
create a planar skin.
But none of this entirely dispels the
sense that there are three parts here and
not one whole. What the disposition of
the building parts achieves in relation
to the existing campus layout, the
choice of building materials serves to
underscore. The three brick colours –
red, blue and brown – all appear in
adjacent university buildings. And
perhaps this is the designers’ cleverest
trick – to have embedded the bits of the
new in such a way that form, scale and
colour rest easy.
29
SPECIALIST SERVICE
On a screen near you
Malcolm Barnett, BDA Education
Architect, looks at CAD s e rv i c e s
Roman Deva Garden,
Chester Zoo: This formal
centrepiece of the garden,
based on a hunting scene
mosaic unearthed at
Pompeii, uses clay cobbles
as mosaic pieces. The
layout, pattern and cutting
requirements were
developed by the
brickmaker using its CAD
hard landscape program.
T
30
he flexibility of brickwork means
that it can be tailored to
virtually any design situation. In
order to help specifiers exploit this
virtue, and to generate detailing
solutions that work, brickmakers have
been quick to provide assistance by
way of computer-aided design (CAD)
services to architects, engineers,
contractors and distributors.
Naturally, the type and extent of
services and the basis on which they are
supplied varies between individual
companies – this article aims to provide
an overview.
Services range from design studies
and 3D visualisations through to final
construction details and scheduling
services for cost estimating purposes.
The most commonly used CAD
software is AutoCAD 2000, but
information can also be made available
in DXF format for use with other
commonly used CAD systems.
Information can also be exchanged via
all available electronic systems.
Kosei Securities Offices, Osaka: The Japanese
architect of this prestigious headquarters building
sought British expertise in the detail design of its
superb brickwork. CAD resolved details of the
major-span arch at the entrance, the minor-span
circular arches and the intricate bonding that
produced the texture that is such a striking feature of
this impressive building.
For architects and designers not
yet geared to CAD, at least one
company can convert hand-drawn
details into AutoCAD and can produce
3D computer images from 2D
information.
Some manufacturers also maintain a
photographic sample database of their
bricks that can be combined in a
variety of bonds and mortar colours to
produce digital versions of brickwork
panels. These can be e-mailed to the
client as JPEG files. These visualisations
can also be pasted into 2D and 3D
models to show the effect on the
overall appearance.
Many manufacturers can help with
the architectural detailing of arches,
plinths, window surrounds, corbels,
sills, copings and cappings and the
most intricate arrangements of
polychromatic brickwork. Sketches and
templates for bespoke brick specials,
plaques and lettered bricks can quickly
be produced.
Depending on the circumstances of
each individual project, these services
may be available on a speculative basis
or on receipt of confirmation that an
order will result. Details are often
prepared to clarify order requirements
and, following receipt of the order,
details may then be produced full size
for use in manufacturing, particularly
when non-standard special shapes are
being used.
Paving layouts are another example
of how manufacturers’ CAD services
can help designers and suppliers in
exploring a number of options. Ranges
of standard brick and paver details are
available in electronic format for
incorporation directly into CAD
drawing files for software systems
capable of reading DXF files.
For more information on individual
companies’ services, visit the BDA
website www.brick.org.uk, which has
links to all member company sites. Or
contact our Brick Information Service.
Leeds General Infirmary: Sensuous curving forms characterise planters in Jubilee
Square, the attractive entrance to the hospital. Artist Tess Jaray’s concepts wer e
realised in bespoke bricks, designed and dimensioned with the help of the brickmaker’s
CAD service.
31
Ambion Brick Co Ltd
Swan House, Bosworth Hall, The Park,
Market Bosworth, Warwickshire CV13 0LJ
Tel 01455 292888
Fax 01455 292877
Email sales@ambion.co.uk
www.ambion.co.uk
Northern Sales Office
Tel 01388 603008
South East Sales Office
Tel 01403 241555
South West Sales Office
Tel 01752 880659
Baggeridge Brick plc
Fir Street, Sedgley, Dudley,
West Midlands DY3 4AA
Tel 01902 880555
Fax 01902 880432
Email sales@baggeridge.co.uk
www.baggeridge.co.uk
Sales Office Tel 01902 880666
London Consultancy
Tel 020 7236 6222
Rudgwick Sales Office
Tel 01403 822212
Bovingdon Brickworks Ltd
Pudds Cross, Bovingdon,
Hertfordshire HP3 0NW
Tel 01442 833176
Fax 01442 834539
Email info@bovingdonbrickworks.co.uk
www.bovingdonbrickworks.co.uk
Broadmoor Brickworks Ltd
Whimsey, Cinderford, Gloucester GL14 3JA
Tel 01594 822255
Fax 01594 826782
The Bulmer Brick & Tile Co Ltd
Brickfields, Bulmer, Sudbury,
Suffolk CO10 7EF
Tel 01787 269232
Fax 01787 269040
Email bulmerbrickandtile@virgin.net
Carlton Brick Ltd
Grimethorpe, Near Barnsley,
South Yorkshire S72 7BG
Tel 01226 711521
Fax 01226 780417
Direct Sales Line
Tel 01226 715000
Chelwood Brick Ltd
Adswood Road, Cheadle Hulme,
Cheadle, Cheshire SK8 5QY
Tel 0161 485 8211
Fax 0161 486 1968
Email marketing@chelwood.co.uk
www.chelwood.co.uk
32
© 2001
The Brick
Development
Association Limited
Woodside House
Winkfield
Windsor
Berks SL4 2DX
Tel: 01344 885651
Fax: 01344 890129
E-mail:
brick@brick.org.uk
Website:
www.brick.org.uk
WH Collier Ltd
Adswood Road, Cheadle Hulme,
Cheadle, Cheshire SK8 5QY
Tel 0161 485 8211
Fax 0161 486 1968
Dennis Ruabon Ltd
Hafod Tileries, Ruabon,
Wrexham LL14 6ET
Tel 01978 843484
Fax 01978 843276
Email sales@dennisruabon.co.uk
www.dennisruabon.co.uk
Freshfield Lane Brickworks Ltd
Danehill, Haywards Heath,
Sussex RH17 7HH
Tel 01825 790350
Fax 01825 790779
Email sales@flb.uk.com
www.flb.uk.com
Beacon Hill Brick Company Ltd
Wareham Road, Corfe Mullen,
Wimborne, Dorset BH21 3RX
Tel 01202 697633
Fax 01202 605141
Email sales@beaconhill-brick.co.uk
www.beaconhill-brick.co.uk
Chiddingstone Brickworks Ltd
Bore Place, Chiddingstone,
Edenbridge, Kent TN8 7AR
Tel 01732 463712
Fax 01732 740264
Email info@commonwork.org
www.commonwork.org
Coleford Brick & Tile Co Ltd
The Royal Forest of Dean Brickworks,
Cinderford, Glos GL14 3JJ
Tel 01594 822160
Fax 01594 826655
Hammill Brick Ltd
Eastry, Sandwich, Kent CT13 0EH
Tel 01304 617613
Fax 01304 611036
Hanson Bricks Europe
Stewartby, Bedford MK43 9LZ
London
Tel 08705 258258
Kempston
Tel 08705 258258
Butterley
Tel 08705 258258
Desimpel
Tel 08705 258258
Fax 01234 762041
Email info@hansonbricks.com
www.hanson-brickseurope.com
Ibstock Brick Ltd
Ibstock, Leicestershire, LE67 6HS
Tel 01530 261999
Fax 01530 257457
www.ibstock.co.uk
Scotland
Glasgow Tel 0870 9034001
North West
Parkhouse Tel 0870 9034007
North East
Throckley Tel 0870 9034004
Eastern
Leicester Tel 0870 9034008
Hathernware Tel 0870 9034016
West Midlands
Lodge Lane Tel 0870 9034006
South West
Cattybrook Tel 0870 9034010
South East
Laybrook Tel 0870 9034012
London
London Tel 0870 9034013
Kingscourt Brick
Kingscourt, County Cavan, Ireland
Tel +353 (0)42 9667317
Fax +353 (0)42 9667206
Marshalls Clay Products Ltd
Southowram, Halifax,
West Yorks HX3 9SY
Tel 01422 306000
Fax 0113 220 3555
www.marshalls.co.uk
Sales Office Howley Park
Woodkirk, Dewsbury,
West Yorks WF12 7JJ
Tel 0113 220 3535
Scotland Sales Office
Tel 0141 333 0985
Normanton Brick Co Ltd
Wakefield Road Brickworks,
Normanton, West Yorkshire WF6 1BG
Tel 01924 892142
Fax 01924 223455
Northcot Brick Ltd
Blockley, Gloucestershire GL56 9LH
Tel 01386 700551
Fax 01386 700852
Email info@northcotbrick.co.uk
www.northcotbrick.co.uk
Ormonde Brick Ltd
Castlecomber, County Kilkenny, Ireland
Tel +353 (0)56 41323
Fax +353 (0)56 41314
Phoenix Brick Company Ltd
The Brickworks, Campbell Drive,
Barrow Hill, Chesterfield S43 3PR
Tel 01246 473171
Fax 01246 280345
Email phoenixbrick@netscapeonline.co.uk
Red Bank Manufacturing Co Ltd
Measham, Swadlincote
Derbyshire DE12 7EL
Tel 01530 270333
Fax 01530 273667
Email sales@redbankmfg.co.uk
www.redbankmfg.co.uk
Redland Tile & Brick
48 Coalisland Road
Dungannon
Northern Ireland
BT71 6LA
Tel 02887 723421
Fax 02887 727193
www.redland-tile-brick.co.uk
Sussex Brick Ltd
Fourteen Acre Lane, Three Oaks
Hastings, East Sussex TN35 4NB
Tel 01424 814344
Fax 01424 814707
The Wemyss Brick Co Ltd
45-49 Cowley Street, Methil,
Fife KY8 3QQ
Tel 01592 712313
Fax 01592 716349
Email wemyssbrickco@btinternet.com
www.wemyssbrick.co.uk
The York Handmade Brick Co Ltd
Forest Lane, Alne, York YO61 1TU
Tel 01347 838881
Fax 01347 838885
Email sales@yorkhandmade.co.uk
www.yorkhandmade.co.uk
Brick Information Service available on
09068 615290
Monday to Fridays at 10.00am - 12.30 pm & 2.30pm - 4.30pm.
Calls are automatically charged at the rate of 60p per minute.
The contents of this publication are intended for general guidance only and any person intending to use these contents for the purpose of design, construction or repair of brickwork or any
related project should first consult a professional advisor. The Brick Development Association, its servants, and any persons who contributed to or who are in any way connected with this
publication accept no liability arising from negligence or otherwise howsoever caused for any injury or damage to any person or property or as a result of any use or reliance on any method,
product, instruction, idea, or other contents of this publication.