Best of #brick

Bricks are a truly versatile material to enclose, hold up, decorate and ventilate buildings in all parts of the globe. They are standardised yet diversified.

Unbaked or baked, luxury villas or community centres, bricks are everywhere. Their meaning might change completely, but they remain a great opportunity for experimentation without a grave risk of pollution. They are clay, and can go back to being just that. Here you can have a look at ten projects recently published on Domusweb.


– The renovation project by Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu in Ghent, Belgium, rethinks what there already is, but totally differently.

– Masquespacio had the challenge to combine a breakfast cafè, a restaurant and a cocktail bar in one single space in Valencia, recreating a Mediterranean feel.

– The church in Vilanova was half destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, and then abandoned: in their renovation project AleaOlea preserved the introspection atmosphere adding a white shell.

– Just by using recycled pulp, Li Xiao-Ming casted a paper brick for indoors and outdoors, that is environmental friendly, waterproof and load-bearing.

– Realised by united4design in Niamey, Niger, this brick housing building increases density and strives to address more than the need for culturally appropriate housing.

– This house in Mexico by Comunal: Taller de Arquitectura features a modular and prefabricated building system, based on panels made with bamboo oldhamii.

– As if it were the case of a precious musical instrument, SPRB Arquitectos’ house in Gadalajara is a robust wrapping that develops around the position of a majestic pianoforte.

– Inspired by the German machinery manufacturer Carl Schlickeysen who first patented the Brickmaking machine, Enorme Studio created a colourful furniture system.

– Italian NGO Made in Earth coinceived a building in Tiruvannamalai, India, as a semitransparent wall, a kind of curly ribbon changing its curvature and height.

– The vacation house designed by Indian studio Design Work Group in Sania Hemad, India, features two walls that run throughout it, connecting and dividing the internal spaces.

Top: united4design, Niamey 2000, Niamey, Niger, 2017. Photo Torsten Seidel