Water feature: RANDERS TEGL
Brand story by Emma Moore
Aalborg, Denmark
24.11.20
Thanks to the age-old waterstruck technique used in their production, each Ultima brick from Randers Tegl that’s produced is unique – providing buildings with an added layer of character.
The use of water to release clay bricks from their moulds is age-old. The method has been updated and automated over the years, but the imperfect finish that gives each brick its own personality endures
Ultima’s visual strength lies not only in its unconventional proportions, but in the fact that every brick is a one-off. The small variations on the surface honour the intrinsic irregularity of its raw material and invest it with age-worn elegance.
The surface irregularities come virtue of the waterstruck method of manufacture. It’s nothing new; it’s a technique that is centuries-old. During the process, water is used as a lubricant to loosen the wet clay from its mould, and it is the contact with the water that sculpts the brick’s surface. Where once it was done entirely by hand, now it’s machines doing the work, but the wash of water keeps surfaces pleasingly inexact, while the basic regularity of form required for efficient modern building practice is maintained.
Waterstruck bricks have a lived-in look, which is key to blending modern structures into historical settings. The effect is seen in this building by Cobe, newly integrated into Copenhagen’s Frederiksberg Allé
Waterstruck bricks have a lived-in look, which is key to blending modern structures into historical settings. The effect is seen in this building by Cobe, newly integrated into Copenhagen’s Frederiksberg Allé
×The value of this perfectly imperfect finish is clear when integrating new buildings into a town’s historical areas, as is the case with the recently completed apartment building by the architectural practice Cobe in Copenhagen’s stately boulevard, Frederiksberg Allé. The mix of waterstruck bricks used in the design helps blend the fiercely modern edifice, set over a new metro station, into its refined 18th-century environment. There is respect for historical heritage while the present-day needs of the city are met.
The waterstruck method of manufacture has been tightly honed by Randers Tegl and is used not only in Ultima but in many of their brick series. It makes a brick with character, that can add an extra layer of poetry onto the work of an architect, and ensures it never falls into the humdrum of mass-produced homogeneity.
© Architonic
