The Brick Industry Association (BIA) has honored outstanding design incorporating genuine clay brick for both aesthetics and sustainability. Offering architects and contractors an increasingly wide palette of colors, textures and shapes for exterior and interior expression, the 2012 Brick in Architecture Award winning projects span 28 states and include commercial, educational, health care, houses of worship, municipal/government, paving and landscape architecture, multifamily and single family residential. See Photo Gallery
“As a versatile building material made in America made from abundant natural resources, there is no substitute for genuine clay brick,” said BIA President and CEO Gregg Borchelt, P.E. “Unlike manufactured masonry products, brick fired from genuine clay offers permanent, through-body color, proven performance and natural beauty that imitation products just can’t match,” he said.
In addition to competitive benefits over other exteriors, brick offers great freedom to match the architect’s imagination and desires as well as an essential element of sustainable design.
“The North Carolina State University chancellor’s residence, named The Point, won Best in Class in the residential single family category. The 5,400-s.f. residence (comprising 3,100 s.f. of living quarters) was designed by North Carolina State University led by Marvin Malecha, FAIA, dean of the NC State University College of Design and president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Genuine clay brick was part of the sustainable materials selected, including solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling.
Malecha said that the residence was designed to represent NC State and North Carolina as a “mini stimulus” to help boost the state’s jobs and materials. “We wanted it to not only be beautiful and adaptable to the ways it will be used, but also be build using sustainable practices,” said Malecha.
Founded in 1934, BIA is the nationally recognized authority on clay brick construction representing the nation’s distributors and manufacturers of clay brick and suppliers of related products. Read More.