Fired clay brick continues to evolve with new color blends, textures, and architectural shapes that inspire innovative and enduring designs. These design trends are evident in the winning projects from the BIA's Brick in Architecture Awards.
Here’s a look at the latest brick design trends based on recent award winners:
1. Unique brick patterns using different depths and orientation
Photos: Scholz Images
For the west façade of the 77,000-sf Farm Credit Services of America Corporate Office Building 2 in Omaha, Neb., Clark Enersen Partners created an abstract representation of wind blowing through a wheat field—using two brick colors at various depths and orientation. The west façade brick also helps minimize late day glare, while openings in the façade still filter natural light through vertical fins.
2. Gray and white shades of brick
Photos: Slyworks Photography
Cougar Woods Dining Hall, a 25,000-sf pavilion on the University of Houston’s main campus, promotes a passive approach to sustainable design. Designed by PageSoutherlandPage, the dining area has extensive glazing on its north side to provide daylighting within the building, while minimizing heat gain. Solid masonry walls with a lighter color were used to protect the southern and western elevations from the sun and reduce the heat island effect.
In another example, Wormley School Rowhouses in Washington, D.C.’s historic Georgetown neighborhood were painted neutral colors to match the existing neighborhood. While maintaining historic integrity, Cunningham | Quill Architects converted a school building into condominiums and a new row of townhouses built on the adjacent schoolyard.
Photo: Chris Morrison
3. Brick for flexibility in color, shape, and form
Photos: Tony Frederick Photography
For Hendricks Regional Health YMCA, Avon, Ind., American Structurepoint aimed to celebrate the symbiotic relationship of health and wellness through an integral use of brick and organic forms. Brick was used in areas where there were noise and privacy concerns. A two-tone scheme used a deep brown brick color to anchor the façade and hold up the lighter, buff-colored brick to create a sense of place and familiarity with the hospital brand. Brick easily conformed to the straight, angled, and curved walls throughout the facility.
4. Textures: sanded, artisan, wirecut, and tumbled
Photos: Halkin Architectural Photography
The University of Pennsylvania Law School uses masonry to define the image of a 21st century law school. One of Penn Law’s primary goals was to unify its campus with the addition of the new Golkin Hall. To do so required maintaining the material presence of Silverman Hall, built for the law school in 1900. Kennedy & Violich Architecture used sand-molded brick and a distinctive Flemish bond pattern used on all subsequent buildings.
5. Contrasting brick colors and course patterns
Photos: David Sundberg
The 172,000-sf New Settlement Campus in Bronx, N.Y., houses three schools for 1,000 PK-12 students on a busy urban block. Dattner Architects interplays massing, materials, and patterning to create scale and interest for the block-long building. A two-story, red brick commons wing parallels an elevated subway train, and intersects a four-story buff brick classroom wing that bends away from the street. The contrasting brick colors and course patterns distinguish the two wings. A graduated vertical pattern of darker projecting brick articulates the classroom wing’s cream-colored brick façade, which is perpendicular to the elevated train to minimize noise.
6. Hinge-shaped face brick
Photos: Ballogg Photography
Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook, Ill., is located in a suburban environment at the confluence of the village’s municipal campus, tract housing, and a recreational park. To facilitate the organic shape of the building’s exterior, Nagle Hartray Architecture used an innovative, single modular size hinge-shaped face brick for 28 different inside and outside corner conditions.
7. Brick to introduce new architectural motifs/ornamentation
Photos: Dror Baldinger
McKinney York Architects designed the 7,000-sf non-denominational Kent R. Hance Chapel, Lubbock, Texas, in the Spanish Renaissance style of the historic sections of campus. The chapel’s bell tower, curved articulation of the gabled parapet walls and ermine patterning of the principal façade are all instances where brick played a decisive role to introduce new architectural motifs, celebrating only the most important architectural elements.
For more brick designs, see the 2014 and 2013 Brick in Architecture Award winners.
Related Stories
Airports | Aug 3, 2018
Airport trends 2018: Full flights with no end in sight
As service demand surges, airports turn to technology, faster building techniques.
Airports | May 31, 2018
Denver's airport city
Cultivation of airport cities is an emerging development strategy shaped by urban planners, civic leaders, airport executives, and academics.
| May 24, 2018
Accelerate Live! talk: Security and the built environment: Insights from an embassy designer
In this 15-minute talk at BD+C’s Accelerate Live! conference (May 10, 2018, Chicago), embassy designer Tom Jacobs explores ways that provide the needed protection while keeping intact the representational and inspirational qualities of a design.
Retail Centers | Apr 19, 2018
Miami International Airport is home to the first Johnnie Walker store in the U.S.
The store will be a permanent fixture in the airport’s North Terminal.
Airports | Feb 21, 2018
Terminal Modernization: Why Bother? Part II
This is the second post in our series examining why airport operators should bother to upgrade their facilities, even if capacity isn’t forcing the issue.
Airports | Feb 7, 2018
LaGuardia Airport receives eight private work booths in Terminal B
The hub sees over 15 million travelers annually.
Libraries | Jan 29, 2018
Commercial plane that skidded off the runway may become Turkey’s newest public library
The plane was removed from its cliffside perch five days after the incident.
Giants 400 | Oct 5, 2017
On wings of gold: Alternative financing schemes are propelling the high-flyin’ air terminals sector
The $4 billion renovation of New York City’s LaGuardia Airport is the first major U.S. aviation project delivered using a public-private partnership (P3) model.
Giants 400 | Oct 3, 2017
Top 30 airport engineering firms
AECOM, Burns & McDonnell, and Arup top BD+C’s ranking of the nation’s largest airport sector engineering and EA firms, as reported in the 2017 Giants 300 Report.
Airports | Sep 11, 2017
Terminal modernization: Why bother? Part I
A terminal modernization program can be a complicated and expensive task that airport operators may be hesitant to undertake unless necessitated by demands for increased capacity. This is the first post in our series examining why airport operators should bother to upgrade their facilities, even if capacity isn’t forcing the issue.