SUSTAINABLE BRICK ARCHITECTURE: WIENERBERGER

Award-winning source of inspiration – clay building materials
Clay building materials are among the oldest building materials on earth and, with Wienerberger, also among the most modern. How exciting, diverse and sustainable architecture with clay building materials can be was presented in an impressive lookbook – for design-oriented architects – and accompanied by an expressive campaign for brick construction. The publication was awarded the Iconic Awards 2020 and, also received a nomination for the German Design Award 2021. Get inspired and order the exclusive lookbook ‘Inspiring clay building materials’ free of charge.

The buildings and cities we plan today are forecasts of how we will live in the future. We should therefore start today to consider the social changes of the future. How can architecture be reconciled with the social values of nature and health and translate it into space where the combination of technical requirements of digital transformation and the issues of sustainability, energy efficiency and recyclability are integrated and an essential part of it?

Bricks have shaped our cultural area for several millennia until today. With technological progress, the materials and production processes have been successively developed over time into a high-tech product and adapted to new requirements. Their basic values have remained.

Today, enthusiasm for bricks is more topical than ever, as they reflect the basic values of society today in an outstanding way and at the same time take up the requirements of the future in order to create sustainable space for an identity-forming coexistence in the future. Highest material quality goes hand in hand with functionality and a variety of design options through different characteristics and appearances. Colours, structures, formats and associations open up a wide range of design options for new and existing buildings, allowing individualisation and harmonious integration into the context.

Cultural imprint and regional origin generate identity, security, stability, trust and transparency. Regionality is becoming an increasingly important aspect of holistically understood sustainability – sustainability from pure efficiency to the demand for a circular economy. Recycling and origin are becoming an essential product criterion according to service requirements. Durability creates stability of value and at the same time saves resources. Today, naturalness and authenticity are at the same time decision criteria for building owners and designers. Unlimited design variety, which allows individualisation and at the same time strengthens and inspires in its simplicity, in the highest quality of craftsmanship, tradition and regionality – today more than ever before.

Particularly in an urban context, brick construction has been able to develop an important tradition over centuries due to its safety aspects. In terms of design, icons from all phases of the history of building – from the era of Modernism and Expressionism through representatives such as Peter Behrens, Hendrik Berlage, Heinz Bienefeld, Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier – are convincing. In the present by David Chipperfield, Herzog de Meuron or Arno Lederer, to name but a few.

The central task of architecture has always been the relationship between man and space, even if one gets the impression that this has been forgotten from time to time in the course of architectural history. Today, Sir Winston Churchill's statement ‘First we shape our spaces, then they shape us’ can be substantiated by research results from brain research and neuropsychology. Bricks help us to understand this in a double sense. The human scale of their small format, their naturalness and resource efficiency, their homogeneity and authenticity, their material truth, simplicity and honesty can be experienced and understood with all the senses, create trust and familiarity and stand for our cultural memory today and in the future.

Building projects today are already no longer just the sum of materials and trades, but the result of holistic concepts. With a total of 200 years of experience, Wienerberger stands for sustainable construction and for living spaces that will last for generations. Clay building materials from Wienerberger are a guarantor for lasting value and ecological architecture that combines quality and economy with aesthetics and sustainability. Resilient and healthy buildings and cities of the future, with overall social responsibility for people and the environment.

Let yourself be inspired and order the exclusive lookbook ‘Inspiring clay building materials’ for free.