GREENBUILD 2011: Brick offers growing options for sustainable building design

The latest sustainable projects in all building sectors are incorporating genuine clay brick for its green benefits that also help meet the highest building criteria. Naturally organic with virtually no waste, maintenance-free brick is a growing component of green building design that helps lower energy costs and offers superior durability, moisture control, termite resistance, proven stability and enduring beauty.

Often incorporating recycled content, brick exteriors, interiors and landscaping options can increase sustainability that also helps earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

“As a versatile building material made from abundant natural resources, brick delivers on all fronts,” said Brick Industry Association (BIA) President and CEO Gregg Borchelt, P.E. “Brick’s flexibility and inherent green benefits help builders and architects achieve maximum sustainability and greater value with reduced environmental impact,” he said.

Six of the eight Best in Class winners in this year's Brick in Architecture Awards achieved LEED Gold or Silver certification—including the first LEED Gold certified project in Tennessee, the Methodist Le Bonheur Women's and Children's Pavilion. Winners’ combined reasons for choosing brick include its quality, long-term durability, environmental friendliness, aesthetics, low maintenance, increased seismic safety, thermal mass and design flexibility through color, texture, rhythm, human scale, pattern and repetition. BD+C

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Fire-rated glass floor system study area. Photo: courtesy TGP

Fire-rated glass floor system captures light in science and engineering infill

In implementing Northwestern University’s Engineering Life Sciences infill design, Flad Architects faced the challenge of ensuring adequate, balanced light given the adjacent, existing building wings. To allow for light penetration from the fifth floor to the ground floor, the design team desired a large, central atrium. One potential setback with drawing light through the atrium was meeting fire and life safety codes.