BRICK

Project:
Harley Davidson
showroom,
London

12
14
Project:
Geffrye Museum,
extension, London
22
Project:
Housing,
Glasgow
Technical notes:
Wash and brush up,
Jubilee Line Extension

29
Summer 2000
UK £5.00

COVER
House,
Ballihoo,
Caversham
 BRICK Summer 2000

UPDATE
3-4 Outram’s Dutch treat

Acting editor
Brick Awards 2000
Brickwork by the book
B rick Bulletin makes its first
twenty-first century appearance
with a very strong selection of fine
Sue Duncan Inspirational design from across Europe buildings and structures. My per-
Technical editor
Second time around sonal reaction is to be impressed,
Michael Hammett The outcome of the Skills Olympics final once more, by the infinite possibil-
Environmental issues ities of brick and how this medium
Co-ordinating editor Wave power at Portsmouth can keep on re-inventing itself, in
Ruth Slavid
the hands of architects and crafts-
Production editors
VIEWPOINT men, to produce the most amazing
Bill Broun results.
Eleanor Young
5-7 Ecohouse designer Dr Susan Roaf on designing It is such a familiar material
Art editor for sustainability that we run the risk of taking it
Terry Howe
The TIA 2000 conference for granted, perhaps overlooking
its enduring qualities. As a relative
PROJECT PROFILES newcomer to the industry, I have
been struck by the amazing rich-
8-9 Academic building ness and variety of brick and,
A new research lab asserts itself on the Bristol perhaps with the zeal of the newly
skyline converted, urge everyone to take a
10-11 Housing fresh look at the material.
A village ambience for Queen's University Look anew at those enduring
student residences qualities of beauty, diversity, flexi-
12-13 Retail building bility, durability and sustainability.
A polished performance at Harley-Davidson All of these virtues are illustrated
showrooms in this issue. There is a particularly
14-17 Public building strong theme of sustainability, with
The Geffrye Museum Extension provides a new Dr Susan Roaf’s Viewpoint article
angle on brickwork and our sponsorship of the TIA
18-19 Private house 2000 conference on Sustainable
A new house takes to the water Buildings. At Manchester’s Contact
ISSN: 0307-9325
20-21 Structural brickwork Theatre, Alan Short’s brick chim-
Published by
Gillingham Northern Link Road walling uses a neys have a key role in the natural
range of brickwork structures ventilation strategy – as well as
22-23 Housing creating dramatic new silhouettes.
151 Rosebery Avenue Award-winning housing in Glasgow uses brick to And at London Bridge station it
London EC1R 4GB the full is very satisfying to see the beauty
Printer 24-25 Housing of 170 year-old brickwork vaults,
Cradley Print Bold and stylish stripes distinguish Docklands cleaned and restored, confidently
housing holding their own against the
26-28 Public Building prevailing glass and steel context
The Contact Theatre brings new drama to of the Jubilee Line Extension.
Manchester in more ways than one Finally, in London’s East End,
Branson Coates – a practice not
TECHNICAL NOTES usually associated with brick
buildings – has given solid tradi-
29-30 Restoration tional brickwork and lime mortars
Restoring brickwork structures at London Bridge a twist. Its horseshoe-shaped
31 Design guidance extension to the Geffrye Museum
Brickwork openings of non-brick widths has sloping brickwork which really
The Brick gives one pause. It makes you look
Development BDA MEMBERS at the fabric once, twice, and then
Association Limited again – more closely this time.
Woodside House 32 A full listing of members Perhaps that’s what we should
Winkfield
Windsor all be doing – all of the time.
Berks SL4 2DX
Tel 01344 885651 Con Lenan, chief executive, BDA
Fax 01344 890129
E-mail
brick@brick.org.uk
Website
2 www.brick.org.uk
Outram’s Dutch treat
The flamboyant polychromatic brick-
work in a striking development at The
Hague’s Old Town Hall announces
itself as the work of John Outram
Associates.
The completion of a new town hall
1km away presented the chance for a
unique addition to the already thriving
shopping area. The project, for devel-
oper MAB Groep, comprised the con-
version of the part Medieval Oude
Stadhuis into offices, plus a new retail
development on the adjoining site. This
Bricks across Europe
Clay Bricks and Tiles in Europe, pub-
lished by the Fédération Européenne des
Fabriquants de Tuiles et de Briques
(TBE), shows construction ceramics at
their superb best in a series of fine
projects, all of which are beautifully
photographed.
Projects from across the 21 country-
strong membership of the organisation
are shown – for purposes of both educa-
tion and inspiration. Projects as diverse
as de Montfort University in Leicester
and the nine storey Hotel Lille rub shoul-
ders with Czech apartment buildings and
the new railway station in Seville,
demonstrating the versatility of the medi-
um in diverse architectural styles.
Copies are available at £7.00, only from
the BDA.
was freed by the demolition of the
unloved 1970s Council Chamber, the
rough concrete facades and layout of
which had always been at odds with
the old quarter.
A circular building – the Rotunda –
is at the apex of the triangular site, act-
ing as the main entrance and stair hall
for the first-floor department store. The
other flanks of the scheme contain
shopfronts and are cut back to reveal
the fine facades of the Oude Stadhuis.
In the Oude Stadhuis itself, while
the first floor now houses offices for
Brickwork by the book
The BDA Guide to
Successful
Brickwork (Second
Edition) is now
available. It is an
indispensable guide
for all involved in
teaching, specifying
or practising good
brickwork and pro-
vides comprehensive coverage of the
subject, updating and expanding the
award-winning first edition published
in 1994. New photographs and techni-
cal drawings have been added and there
are two additional sections, covering
chimney and fireplace construction.
The BDA’s sponsorhip for this edi-
tion reaffirms its commitment to sup-
porting the training of skilled bricklay-
ers, and promoting good practice in
brickwork masonry.
Published by Arnold, the book is
available from booksellers and from the
BDA (ISBN 340 75899 6, price £16.99.
Plus postage and packaging at £3.50).
rent, the magnificent ground-floor
interiors are retained for public use as a
registry office.
It is the rotunda entrance that marks
out the development as unmistakably
Outram. It has a glazed clay tile roof
sitting on columns clad with a trade-
mark psychedelic palette; the shiny pre-
cision of glazed bricks – red, white, yel-
low, dark and light blue – in combina-
tion with blue engineering bricks, each
of them special shaped radius bricks to
achieve the tight arc required. The pro-
ject was fully let before completion.
In search of excellence
A black-tie gala din-
ner on Thursday 28
November at
London’s Café
Royal is the venue
for presentation of
the Brick Awards
2000.
Organised in asso-
ciation with the
Builder Group and judged by a dis-
tinguished panel of assessors, the
awards will identify, honour and cele-
brate the best in brickwork design
and craftsmanship.
Nomination forms are being dis-
tributed through the building press,
and are also available from the staff
of various brickcompanies.
Alternatively call the BDA (tel
01344 885651) for an entry form, or
download one directly from the BDA
website at www.brick.org.uk. The
final deadline for entries is Friday 1
September 2000.
3

Second time around
A frequent subject of inquiry to the BDA
Technical Information Service is the use
of reclaimed bricks. These have an
undoubted appeal, particularly where a
mature and weathered appearance is
sought, though specifiers may not be
aware that new bricks can often achieve
the desired appearance at lower cost,
Envest for the
environment
ENVEST is a
new software
package from
BRE enabling
designers to esti-
mate the life-
cycle environ-
mental impact
of a building
Wave power
The Wymering Wall in Portsmouth is a
massive artwork in brick, stone and
flint and is part of the Wymering Public
Art Project, whose recent opening
4 marked the fruition of four years of
while having the advantages of known
provenance, established technical perfor-
mance and assured availability.
Architect Alison Norcross of the
BDA Technical Information Service has
prepared some guidance on the subject
and her document explores the aesthetic,
technical and economic issues.
It can be downloaded directly from
the BDA website at www.brick.org.uk.
from the early design stage. Alternative
schemes and materials can be compared
on the basis of ‘ecopoints’ (100 eco-
points being equivalent to the environ-
mental impact of one UK citizen a
year). For more information e-mail
kapoor@bre.co.uk
Readers are reminded of BDA’s pub-
lication Brick for Life. This looks at
brick’s role in and impact on the envi-
ronment and is available free of charge
from BDA.
artistic effort and the active involve-
ment of the local community.
The Lottery funded project had its
origins in a proposed new multi-pur-
pose community sports centre. Various
local artists were asked to respond to
its public arts potential and the result
Skill Olympics final
Chris Armitage has returned from the
Olympics with a Diploma of
Excellence. His event was bricklaying
and the games in question were the
International Youth Skills Olympics
Montreal, held in Montreal last
November.
The challenge facing an internation-
al field of 17 competitors was an
exceptionally tough piece involving
intricate patterns of different colours
and shapes and entailing many individ-
ual cuts. Armitage came just outside
the medal category but was later pre-
sented by Baroness Blackstone with a
UK Skills Woodbine Parish Award.
This rewards the highest marks above
diploma level by a non medal winner.
The Irish representative took the gold.
reflects both their individual approach-
es and the input of local residents.
A physical boundary between the
new centre and the main road was
needed. Artist Peter Codling responded
with a wall that unfolds for 129m of
bending, coiling brickwork, creating
dynamic shapes from every angle. The
radii are tight – the 129m of wall is
compressed along a 90m boundary –
and called for expertise in manufacture
and bricklaying. So did the double-
archway gate with rope spiral columns
which mark the pedestrian entrance.
The brickwork, by local builders
Trevor Duke and Bradley Drackett, has
been singled out for praise.
This is a narrative wall: the bricks
are inscribed with community names,
dates and quotes inscribed by residents
before firing. The flints were from the
site, and a local collector donated the
fossils which are embedded in mortar.
The project was initiated by
Portsmouth City Council’s City Arts
and in partnership with the Wymering
Community Association.
 Dr Susan Roaf

The challenge of creating

sustainable housing
1 The Oxford
Ecohouse: 48
photovoltaic panels
and four solar
heating panels are
installed on the
south-facing roof.
The house
produces only
140kg CO 2 a year
compared with a
comparable house
built to 1995
Building
Regulations, which
would produce
circa 6520kg a
year
2 Thermographic
image of the
Ecohouse in
autumn. Even with
200mm of
insulation in the
roof it is letting out
some heat
3 Thermographic
image of
neighbouring
house. Note
extreme thermal
bridging in the
structure at the
corners and air
leakage at eave
level. These two
images show the
importance of
careful detailing
4 Large
photovoltaic
installation in a 1
commercial

D
building, the Solar Dr Susan Roaf lectures oes sustainability have ● Carbon dioxide emissions, the
Building, Doxfor d
International at Oxford Brookes implications for architectural greenhouse effect and climate change
Business Park, University, School of form? asked New Zealander ● Ozone depletion
Sunderland Architecture and lives Peter Diprose in his doctoral thesis at ● Pollution
in the Oxford Ecohouse Auckland University. He concluded that ● Extinction of species and destruction
which she designed sustainability may have the potential to of habitat
create novel forms, but no one ● Population increase and development
‘sustainable’ aesthetic is likely to ● Resource depletion.
emerge. Instead, a raft of responses will I believe we are capable of meeting
emerge with elements reflecting the these challenges and have the tools and
broad range of issues the subject knowledge to create sustainable
An extended entails. buildings. Solutions lie, not with HVAC
version of this These issues relate directly to engineers or planners, but with
article is available
on the BDA fundamental environmental challenges architects. Because the answer to the
website at facing us in the twenty-first century. question ‘is the building sustainable?’ is
www.brick.org.uk They include: always ‘it all depends’, and that is ‘on 5
 the architecture’ – how the designer
deals with the issues noted above.
Let us not underestimate the
importance of buildings in the future of
the world. They consume around half
of all energy used in the developed
countries. The USA uses more than 40
per cent of all its generated electricity
on air-conditioning buildings. In
Britain, despite the fact that the number
of households has increased by 22 per
cent since 1970 and domestic energy
consumption has risen by 28 per cent,
annual CO2 emissions from British
houses have fallen by 21 per cent in the
same period. This has happened for a
number of reasons including increased
levels of energy efficiency and the ‘Dash
for Gas’ that has characterised British 2
patterns of energy use since the early
1970s, when gas became the preferred
fuel for the rapidly expanding central
heating industry. For equivalent energy
gas gives a third to a quarter less CO2
than electricity, because generating our
electricity is only between 25 per cent
and 36 per cent efficient.
Gas resources are depleting, but by
the time our reserves have dwindled the
solar revolution should enable us to
heat our homes and water by electricity
generated from the sun. We cannot rely
on oil, which is commonly thought to
have a total of around 50 easily-
accessible reserves left globally.
As designer and builder of the
Oxford Ecohouse I have learned first-
hand the benefits of very low energy
bills. Since April 1995 gas bills for our
six-bedroom house have been about 3
£13.50 a quarter, and electricity bills
£10 a month (both exclude standing biting cold winds. Shelter it with trees cooler in summer. Design to minimise
charges). The house was built without and planting. cold bridging.
the aid of computer simulation, using Orientation: align buildings with Detail design to reduce energy
lessons learned from master builders main living and bedrooms within 15º leaks: decide the thermal resistance
(modern and ancient) of the European each side of south to save on heating. appropriate to each building element.
solar-design community and the Middle Avoid houses shading each other from The lower the U-value of an element
East, where I lived for many years. Our sun. the better its resistance to heat transfer,
house has proved to have one of the Building form: minimise the surface keeping the interior warm in winter
lowest energy consumptions in the UK, area of building to minimise heat loss. and cool in summer. All elements
hence one of the lowest environmental Shade the building interior from the cannot have equal thermal resistance,
impacts. It provides lessons that can be high summer sun, especially from the but each should be the best of its kind.
transferred to future house designs. west where the hottest air temperatures Masonry construction is not always
The government has predicted the are combined with the low western sun. airtight and detail design should
need for 1.1 million new houses in the Building envelope: be mindful of minimise air leakage. Supervision of
South-east of England between 1996 exposure. Maintenance becomes an site work should ensure that details are
and 2021. It will not matter if these are issue in Life Cycle Costing analyses so built as designed and that shortcomings
built in high-density city sites, in choose materials that do not need in construction do not prejudice
‘compact cities’, or on greenfield sites if frequent maintenance and repair. Brick performance.
they are environmentally profligate. has an advantage, requiring only Ventilation: this is used to remove
What matters is that each has a minimum maintenance. At every main stale air and odours and to heat and
minimum environmental impact. entry point, provide a draught lobby, cool buildings. Never use mechanical
porch, or sunspace to form an air lock ventilation where opening windows or
to control air movement into and out passive stack solutions can work,
Key points for sustainable housing of the building. because it uses extra energy. Natural
Tony Mould, energy and environmental Insulation: choose insulation ventilation should be controlled – not
consultant at Tweed Nuttal Warbuton, materials for their environmental just haphazard air leakage.
has some key points to be considered in benefits as well as their performance. Daylight: windows to the south
creating sustainable housing. The thicker the insulation under the will catch the light, that can be used
Site: save natural habitats where floor, in walls and the roof, the warmer deeper in the building via internal
6 possible. Turn the building away from the building will be in winter and the windows to light internal spaces,
reducing the need for artificial lighting.
Building mass: lightweight TIA conference on sustainable buildings for the twenty-first century
construction, such as a timber frame,
warms up and cools down quickly. Buildings of the future will have to be robust, low-energy and sustainable. It is
Buildings of heavy construction, for an issue near the top of many agendas, the brick industry’s included. So the
example masonry, have more thermal BDA is pleased to align itself with the aims of an international teaching
mass. The masonry acts like the bricks conference at Somerville College, Oxford (9-12 July) and to sponsor the event.
in an electric storage heater, absorbing TIA (Teachers in Architecture) has organised a programme of importance to
heat when it is abundant and radiating all professions involved in building design. It will cover design issues and tools,
it again as the adjacent air temperature teaching methodologies, and case studies from high-tech and low-tech to no-
drops. A passive solar building should tech. A star-studded speaker programme includes Ken Yeang from Kuala
have well-placed thermal mass to act in Lumpur, Baruch Givoni from Los Angeles and Steven Szokolay from Brisbane.
this beneficial way, assisting fuel
economy in winter and comfort For details contact the conference coordinator at the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University.
tel 01865 483200 fax 01865 483298 e-mail tia@brookes.ac.uk
conditions in summer, and reducing the
magnitude of daily temperature
fluctuations.
Embodied energy and materials:
embodied energy is that used in the
manufacture and transport of material
to site. Specifying the most natural
products available with a minimum of
processing, and sourcing them as close
to the site as possible to minimise
transport impacts would seem to be
desirable, but consideration should also
be given to how long they will last and
what they will require in terms of
maintenance and renewal. Recent
studies consider not only embodied
energy of materials, but also the energy
used in their maintenance and
replacement over a 60 year service life
– which is what life-cycle costing is
based on. Durability and product life
are key factors in ensuring the
sustainability of building. Brick
performs well in this context, we know
it can last centuries and still look
beautiful. 4
Heating systems and controls:
choose the lowest energy, or CO2 areas where high humidity is created. targets can include SAP ratings for
emission, heating system available. The ● Use water-based paints on all energy consumption. A SAP rating of
greatest influence on the comfort of the surfaces to enable moisture to be 90 plus is not too ambitious a target to
occupants of the building is the weather absorbed into the building structure, so achieve with sensible design. Another
and the use and control of the heating preventing its build up in the internal target is the ‘Ecological Footprint’ of a
system. The required heat output is air of the house. building. This is a more holistic tool
reduced by the thermal insulation of Water conservation: provide water and measures a household against the
the building fabric and by the heat butts to collect rainwater and consider amount of land required to support its
generated by solar gain and the greywater systems. lifestyle. It assesses transport, energy,
occupants and their equipment. With a Solar water heating: in most years a water, waste, house and garden and
well-insulated building and thermal solar water heating system can provide, purchasing. Another new tool is
mass placed correctly it is possible to free, between 50 and 75 per cent of the ‘Envest’, a very detailed and user-
keep heating energy consumption to a annual hot water requirement of a friendly programme designed for
minimum. house. evaluating the environmental impacts
Condensation: dampness in Photovoltaics or solar electric of new housing; like BREEAM for
buildings is frequently caused by systems (PV): new houses can easily Housing it is produced by the BRE.
condensation of moisture from air of accommodate 500W of PV panels on This is where the architecture
high humidity on cold surfaces. Follow south-facing roofs. This should cost becomes of vital importance.
three simple rules to avoid between £2000 and £2500 for multiple Everything noted above and more has
condensation: systems, which can generate much of to be considered for twenty-first
● Eliminate cold bridges from the basic electricity requirement of the century buildings. Aesthetically houses
construction as they introduce cold house for 20-30 years. can look however the client and the
surfaces internally on which moisture architect decide, but they will have to
condenses perform sustainably. We are in the new
● Provide ventilated air locks Methods of measurement age of performance-driven architecture
such as front porches and rear Sustainable design requires that design and, increasingly, this is what clients
sunspaces where wet clothes and and construction waste should be will be demanding. What will the new
damp washing can be hung to dry. minimised, local communities be architecture look like? It doesn’t
Use passive stack ventilation for the included in developments and building matter. How will it perform? Very well
kitchens and bathrooms which are performance targets set and met. These indeed. 7
 ACADEMIC BUILDING

Chemistry class
Deborah Singmaster reports on an
exuberant new research facility at the
University of Bristol

Client A new chemistry

University of building has given the
Bristol University of Bristol
top-grade facilities for
Project manager
the industry’s next
and architect
generation of research
Percy Thomas
chemists. Despite a
Partnership
brief driven by
Structural, civil, technological as well
M&E engineer as health and safety
Ove Arup & considerations, the
Partners building is a striking
new landmark on the
Contractor
Bristol skyline
Wates
Construction
Photography
STP
Photography

T
he £11.5 million Synthetic
Chemistry Research Laboratories
building at the University of
Bristol occupies a conspicuous hillside
site overlooking the city. Designed by
Percy Thomas Partnership with
engineer Ove Arup and Partners, it is
the product of an exacting and complex
brief, executed with a rapidity and
precision that invites comparison with
the building’s scientific function.
The laboratories, which were
opened by Sir Richard Sykes, the
chairman of Glaxo-Wellcome, are
modelled on those developed by the
pharmaceutical company at Stevenage;
they are key to ensuring that Bristol
continues to attract the best chemistry
staff and students, and to strengthening
the university’s relationship with
industry. Naturally, organisation and
8 fit-out of the internal spaces was the
client’s first priority and the architect
was given a relatively free hand with
the exterior design.
Matching and mixing
Project architect Neil Embleton ‘wanted
the building to be modern but at the
same time to be in touch with its
surroundings’.
The site curves westwards from the
existing 1960s School of Chemistry and
the new building is, in effect, an
extension. Its immediate neighbour is
the Queen’s (Engineering Faculty)
Building in brick and Bath stone, set
back from a Brandon stone rubble
retaining wall. Liver-red Brandon stone
is one of Bristol’s surprises. It is seen
everywhere, particularly in Victorian
structures but is no longer quarried; a
carefully sourced stone mix produced a

convincing substitute – used on the
base of the new building to great effect.
The architect wanted a slightly
brighter brick than that used on the
Queen’s Building. Unless bricks are
blended consistently by mixing from
packs on site as bricklaying proceeds,
unsightly banding can occur. To avoid
this, a computer-mixed multi-brick was
chosen. It was possible to specify the
exact shading and ensure consistency
between packs. The chosen
yellow/brown multi is used as a half-
brick skin tied back to a concrete frame
and blockwork inner leaf.
The only special-shaped bricks
required on the project were pistols cut
from standards to fit over stainless steel
supports, and cut and stuck doglegs for
oblique corners. Pre-mixed, pigmented
Designation (iii) mortar was used and
the stretcher bonded brickwork has
bucket-handle joints for neatness and
weather resistance.
Designing from the inside out
The awkward site and complex brief
dictated the internal lay-out: a clean
corridor to the south and a service
corridor to the north, with laboratories
spanning between. Ancillary spaces
such as offices and computer rooms are
at the west end of the plan, and a
terminal tower, or ‘prow’, containing
meeting rooms in the north west corner.
The 2.6m radius on the prow is the
minimum recommended for standard
bricks in stretcher bond. On the
internal wall of the clean corridor an
impressive 2.4m radius has been
achieved. The rough texture of the
brick face helps disguise any facetting.
Support for the radiused brick cladding
is provided by individual brackets fixed
to the framed structure at floor levels.
The west-facing elevation’s
composition of window shapes and
sizes is informal and includes portholes
set within self-supporting bullseyes
built from standard header bricks.
Visual unity is established by careful
detailing of precast string courses:
beneath each course, a single-brick
band of blue engineering bricks
provides a shadow gap (and also
disguises the presence of weep holes).
The precast string courses and window
dressings have a Bath stone finish, and
the lightweight GRP cornice is an
identical colour match. A decorative
brick band, in a soldier course pattern,
separates the two bottom string courses
and provides a mounting for light
fittings which uplight the brickwork at
night. The top floor has been stepped
back on this elevation, to lessen its
vertical impact and provide space for a
roof terrace with splendid views.
The long south elevation is
articulated by four projecting towers,
each one housing the office of the
lecturer serving the adjacent laboratory.
Corresponding towers on the north
elevation serve as equipment recesses
off the service corridor.
A collegiate interior
The brickwork theme continues inside
the building in the exposed walls of the
clean corridors, and with carpets,
timber doors and purpose-built
furniture, achieves an appropriately
collegiate atmosphere in the staff
offices, in contrast with the necessarily
more clinical finishes in the
laboratories. Curtain-wall glazing spans
between the towers, giving panoramic
views which can be enjoyed from the
main work spaces and particularly from
the low blue brick window seats. Piers
of matching blue bullnose engineering
bricks are also used at the entrance to
the fourth-floor bridge link into the old
building.
The roofline of the new laboratories
is probably the most dramatic in
Bristol, with its curved plant room
roofs – like ski pistes – topped by four
massive chimneys clad in spiralling lead
sheeting: yet planning permission was
obtained without delay or qualification.
Embleton believes that the choice of a
sympathetic brick cladding helped to
generate this favourable reaction to an
eclectic design which sprang from a
challenging site and a technology-
driven brief. 9
 HOUSING

Beveridge in Belfast
Student welfare is at the core of new
student housing. Joan Shannon re p o rt s

Client
The Queen's
University of
Belfast
Architect
Roger
McMichael
Architects
Main Contractor
Felix O'Hare
& Co
S t ru c t u r a l
Engineers
Kirk McClure
Morton
Landscape
Architect
John Williams
Photography
Anderson
McMeekin

T
Brickwork buildings he Queen’s Elms halls of
link with attractive residence for the Queen's
brick landscaping at University of Belfast are situated
new student in parkland in a quiet residential area
residences in Belfast, off the Malone Road, close to the main
creating a village-like university campus. The most recent
environment with the development is Beveridge Hall, an
emphasis on attractive village-like complex, built in
community brick.
The hall was named after the late
Sir Gordon Beveridge, former vice
chancellor of the university. At the
naming ceremony the current vice
chancellor George Bain said: ‘It is most
fitting that this building has been
named Beveridge Hall. One of Sir
Gordon's priorities was the welfare of
students and he did everything in his
10 power to ensure their well-being.’
Community and privacy
For many students, living in hall
represents their first experience of living
away from home and student housing
can play a major role in easing the
transition from family living to full
independence. The Beveridge Hall design
centres on promoting both community
development and privacy: from the
community of external spaces, through
shared internal spaces, to the privacy of
individual bedsitting rooms.
Accommodation for the 354 students
is in 11 three-storey blocks of study
bedrooms on a multi-level site. Each
room has personal washing facilities and
access to a shared kitchen/dining room,
showers and WCs.
The blocks are built as structural,

cellular, load-bearing brick and
blockwork masonry on strip or trench-
fill foundations as expedient. Roofs of
grey-coloured concrete tiles accompany
gable walls topped with reconstituted
stone copings.
Sense of warmth
Extruded wire-cut clay bricks were
specified; a golden buff colour to
engender a sense of warmth for the
external spaces, in combination with
drag-faced, dark blue facings for the base
of walls and for accent features
elsewhere. The bricks are laid in stretcher
bond with the blue brick courses
projecting 10mm proud of the general
plane of buff facing brickwork.
Within the field of buff bricks above
the blue brick base of each building, two
courses of blues form a band to highlight
the ground-floor windows, in association
with the blue sill bricks. Seven single
courses of blue bricks spaced apart form
accent features to the windows and
corners of the first floor. And below the
second-floor windows, three courses of
blues form a band taken right around the
building. Dwarf walls and steps in the
complex reflect the colour combination
used in the building.
The texture and colour of the
brickwork go hand in hand with
decorative lines in a carefully considered
approach that integrates the new
buildings with the landscape. For
example, the mortar colours (dark red
for the buff brick and black for the dark-
blue facing brickwork) are re-echoed in
the external works where buff, blue and
red clay pavers create attractive areas.
Linear motifs are also provided in the
form of black metalwork features –
grilles across the lower part of the
ground-floor windows, cycle racks,
bollards, handrails and a decorative arch.
Paths and avenues
The Queen’s Elms site is elegant
parkland, supporting many varieties of
mature shrubs and trees. Existing trees
were retained and supplemented with
new ones, shrubs and wall-climbing
plants, including various species of ivy.
When mature, they will soften the
appearance of the new buildings,
contributing to the creation of the
relaxed ambience of old-style, ivy
covered, academic halls.
The main avenue between the
principal buildings leads to a paved
terrace with wooded views to the south
beyond a stepped lawn. Paths pass
through spaces between the blocks,
providing connections within the
development and other parts of Queen’s
Elms. Car parking is provided at the
entrance to the site and so the avenue
between the blocks is closed to all except
emergency vehicles.
The car park is paved with tarmac
and clay pavers. A tarmac ‘road’ and
‘pavements’ of buff pavers, laid in
herringbone bond, are separated by blue
drainage-channel blocks. Buff pavers are
also used to emphasise the entrances to
the buildings.
Towards the far end of the main
avenue, circular paved patterns evolve
from the centre of a wide courtyard area.
Smaller circular patterns accentuate the
extremities of other paths within the site.
In each case the centre of the circle is
formed by dark-red pavers. Herringbone
pattern is used in both red and buff
pavers for the designs. The main bulk of
the pavers are buff, while the blue pavers
are used to form patterns of lines and as
a way to creat borders to the other
colours.
Architect Roger McMichael sees
brick ‘as a background to the paved and
planted character of the spaces between
the buildings, which contributes
extensively to the sense of community in
the village.’
The demands of the academic year
made it imperative that the construction
programme should not slip and, in fact,
the two-phase, £4.75 million
development was delivered to plan. The
architect paid tribute to the quality of
workmanship in Northern Ireland saying
‘I applaud the very good bricklaying and
paving squads here and the contractors
that supervised them. They took a pride
in their work.’ 11
 RETAIL BUILDING

Biker walls
George Demetri on Zen and the art of low
maintenance at Harley-Davidson

Client
FH Warr
& Sons
Architect
Cullum
& Nightingale
Contractor
Bickerton
Group
Structural
Engineer
Gifford
& Partners
Photography
Philip Bier

A
Bricks and sleek, n eye-catching red brick drum
glossy new has gone up just behind the
motorcycles may seem King’s Road in Chelsea. It
as different as chalk would have been two storeys taller, had
and cheese. But a planning permission been forthcoming
recently opened for the construction of upper floors. As
showroom shows how it is, F W Warr & Sons had to be
complimentary content with a lower two-storey oval-
handmade bricks can shaped building as showroom and
be when used to offices for its flagship Harley-Davidson
express tradition, motorcycle dealership. It can’t be too
function, durability disappointed however, given the spatial
and sophistication. attributes and enlightened mix of
materials specified by architect Cullum
& Nightingale on a building which is a
tremendous improvement on Warr’s
former accommodation.
Design
Opened in December last year, the new
12 £3 million building comprises a
showroom at ground-floor level with
office accommodation above. It is
attached to an existing workshop. The
option for extending the building
vertically is open, although at present
the roof is used for motorcycle storage.
The showroom is expressed on the
elevation by full-height glazing, broken
intermittently by brick-clad concrete
piers, while the office accommodation
above enjoys full-height, solid 215mm
brick walling punctured by windows.
The building’s dynamic elliptical
shape is a result of the architect’s desire
to maximise the corner site by
exploiting the full perimeter and
creating a building which is as visible
as possible from the King’s Road. This
has been achieved by creating a tall,
double-height showroom with a 5.5m
clear internal floor-to-ceiling height,
and by the use of eye-catching,

handmade, orange-red bricks both
inside and out. Chosen for their
glowing colour even in dull light they
seem to suggest a hint of warm
sunshine.
Construction
The construction is a bit of a hybrid,
with a concrete frame up to first-floor
level and from there up a steel frame to
make for easy connections, should
further floors eventually be added.
From a finishes point of view, the aim
was to match the legendary engineering
associated with the Harley brand and
to reflect what the architects considered
to be the key characteristics of a
Harley-Davidson motorcycle: a
sophisticated, functional and honest
expression of all parts, using the
highest quality materials.
Driven by a dislike of cavity wall
construction, the architects plumped for
solid 215mm brickwork throughout
which they feel has given numerous
benefits, such as the creation of more
satisfying reveals and associated
aesthetic and solar-shading properties.
Furthermore, the introduction of solid
brickwork in Flemish bond with its
alternating stretchers and headers could
more easily accommodate the variable
outer radius of the oval building
without recourse to special-shaped
radial bricks.
The faceted brick-clad concrete
columns extend well back into the
show room – there is a deep 1000mm
reveal. To demonstrate that brickwork
to the piers is purely cladding and not
structural, stack bonding has been
used, with bricks and brick slips tied
back to the concrete with steel ties and
mesh. Topped by reconstituted stone
cappings, the piers extend well above
the first floor level on the front
elevation, although this is purely for
visual effect, as the concrete frame
terminates at the level of the first floor
slab.
Brick, wood and concrete are the
main finishes in the showroom –
deliberately functional and unadorned.
Chosen for their low maintenance and
attractive ageing characteristics, the
effect can be described as sophisticated
rather than brutal. The warmth and
texture provided by the handmade
bricks form a startling contrast to the
extensive shiny, smooth chromework
on the motorcycles. The services and
vertical circulation core are expressed
partly by superbly finished bullnosed
concrete at either end and partly by a
central panel of 215mm thick floor-to-
ceiling brickwork in Flemish bond.
The ultra-smooth finish to concrete
columns was achieved by using plastic
tubes as shuttering, while the fair-faced,
in-situ cast ceiling also provides
interest, thanks to its elaborate profile.
Similar to a folded plate-type structure,
it has provided an alternative solution
to downstand beams which would have
subdivided the soffit and destroyed the
spatial continuity of the showroom.
Viewed in section, the shallow triangles
are actually beams which become
deeper toward the service core wall.
The zigzag alternations provide
interesting junctions where they abut
the wall of the service core. Further
excitement will come when motorcycles
are suspended from the ceiling so as to
fully exploit the light and airy
showroom space.
The other main material of the
showroom is wood. It appears on the
floor as lacquered tongued and grooved
walnut, and was chosen on aesthetic
grounds and for its ability to withstand
the heavy weights of the bikes. More
auspicious are the highly polished,
walnut-topped sales counters – the
largest of which weighs over a tonne.
These monumental, highly polished
lumps of cantilevered wood are
supported on a chrome-finned structure
reminiscent of both motorcycle and
automobile radiators. This is not just
fortuitous; they double up as air
distribution grilles for the variable
volume displacement ventilation system
and contribute to controlling solar heat
gains through the tall glazed facade.
The latter uses a special glass designed
to reduce solar glare and external
reflections into the mainly west-facing
showroom.
Refinement, quality and excitement
are all manifest in this stylish new
showroom, making it a superb setting
for the glamorous icons of personal
transport on display. 13
 PUBLIC BUILDING

Twisting tradition
Branson Coates has had fun with
brickwork at the Geffrye Museum.
Sutherland Lyall slopes of to investigate

T
Concept architect The Georgian Geffrye he Geffrye Museum has long Sunk into the garden and separated
Branson Coates Museum in East been a relatively unambitious from it by a continuous sunken area,
London has been given display of the way people have the glass and metal cladding of the
Executive architect
a design twist with lived over the centuries. Now it is the lower level is protected by a sloping
Sheppard
Branson Coates’ new client for a major extension from the skirt of sunscreens attached to the base
Robson
extension. Its fabric drawing boards of Branson Coates. of a stepped concrete edge beam
Structural will reward close Despite a rocky design history it has curving around the perimeter of the
engineer observation worked out and behind the modest first level slab. On the north side this
Alan Baxter almshouse facades a few streets north skirt merges into the roof of a sloping
& Associates of fashionable Hoxton a spiralling wall ramp which rises to ground level and a
Contractor of brick uncoils from a hidden garden. glazed café area which also serves as
Kier London It’s round the back of the former the link with the Georgian main
almshouses which make up the Geffrye building. Inside, the first floor is a
Photography Museum in London’s Hackney, an curving exhibition space with a
Locations elongated two-storey brick horseshoe bookshop at one end and a kitchen plus
Photography with a low pitched roof. It provides the café at the other linking to the old
museum with much needed additional building. At ground/basement level are
exhibition space – and a modestly education rooms, a workshop and a
14 sensational pavilion in its rear garden. design centre accessed by a dramatic
15
 curving staircase at the core of the
building’s curve.
There’s something odd about the
curving exterior – and then you get it.
The Flemish bond brickwork, of first-
quality multi stocks made from a
Sussex clay, is laid in spiralling courses.
There is a bit of optical confusion
because the wall is a big one but the
defining clue is given by the stepped
supporting edge beam. In fact the slope
is one in 12 and derives from the slope
of the ramp.
Thick thermal flywheel
You can tell from the occasional
opening that this external wall is a very
thick one. In fact there is a 215mm
inner leaf, a 250mm cavity with
180mm of insulation and then a
215mm outer leaf. The wall is a thick
one because it was decided to use the
structure as a thermal sink in order to
iron out temperature differences. The
inner leaf, which is mostly plastered,
has reinforced-brick piers at six to eight
metre centres. They are a brick and a
half on side with a steel rod down the
middle tied back to the supporting slab
16 and filled with concrete. The function
of these piers is to support roof trusses
and provide overall restraint for the
upper parts of the structure – and to
restrain the inner and outer brickwork
of the wall. Although the outer wall is
actually a continuous 80m long piece of
brickwork, it was treated by the
engineers as a series of panels spanning
between the positions of the internal
piers. It is at these points that the outer
wall is tied back to the piers by fishtail
ties slotted into vertical steel channels.
These are supported by substantial
stainless steel flats acting as both struts
and ties protruding through the
insulation from their fixing points in
the mortar beds of each pier. The inner
leaf of the walls was built
conventionally off the concrete slab –
the sawtooth lintels actually extend
under the cavity and the external leaf
and have vertical drain holes.
As Alan Baxter engineer Nick Ling
explains: ‘It’s not really a cavity wall,
more accurately it’s an internal skin of
structural brickwork with piers and a
brick cladding which gains some of its
stability from the ties at the pier
positions. We adopted the fishtail-and-
channel approach because with
standard horizontal mortar beds on the
internal wall and sloping courses on the
outer you could never be sure you
could line up the ties. We considered a
number of possibilities including
standard ties but this was the simplest
and most buildable.’
Eliminating expansion joints
The stepped edge beam supporting the
outer leaf is actually a connected set of
precast sawtooth lintels hanging off the
edge of the first floor slab. With
900mm long steps it was possible to set
out the brickwork above very
accurately. The designers were very
anxious that there should not be any
expansion joints so the mortar is a
1:2:9 (cement:lime:sharp sand) mix laid
as standard 10mm thick joints. Alan
Baxter has some experience with
structural brickwork and lime mortars
and, as Ling explains ‘There were little
special features such as not having
damp proof membranes – except at the
position of the access ramp. This means
the wall will not slide laterally and will
encourage a build-up of little cracks,
which will be distributed across the
whole wall. Because the mortar is
weak, small cracks will be repaired by
the leaching of the lime.’
Wilful?
Doug Branson of design architect
Branson Coates says, ‘We always
thought to do the building in brick.
And we resisted the temptation to do it
completely differently. The question we
asked was, how do you take a
traditional material and give it a twist?
And that is literally what we did.
‘The spiralling courses actually give
a sense of movement as the block goes
round the corner,’ says Branson. People
have said to us that we were being
naughty. But you find this kind of
brickwork in places like, say, the
Barbican’s ramps. And if you look a the
Victorian buildings opposite you see
lots of examples of brickwork
following the line of the structure – and
no-one says that this is particularly
wilful.’
There was a point during the
examination of cost implications when
it looked as though the sloping
brickwork might have to go but the
cost analysis showed that it was very
little more expensive than standard
brickwork. As it was, the brickies were
apparently sorry to finish the project –
which, says Branson, ‘was beautifully
built by main contractor Kier’s people’.
Holes in the wall
The sloping courses and the unusual
680mm thickness of the wall produce
some interesting details at openings.
The logic of the sloping beds calls for
sloping window and door heads
following the line of the brick courses.
And that is exactly what the architects
designed. With reveals a brick and a
half deep and traditional flat arches
with special rubbers, the openings are
unusually satisfying – although it
turned out that in the cost review it
became necessary to do openings with
concealed concrete lintels and brick
slips. This was also the case with the
big arched openings in the two gable
end walls. Branson is philosophic. It
would have been better to have used
traditional construction, but this ends
up looking just about right. There’s an
oddity, you might think, in the fact that
although it costs less to do a replica
version, a replica takes a lot more
effort and cutting and work and
detailing than it does to deploy the
time-honoured method. 17
 PRIVATE HOUSE

A river runs through it

An assertive new house on the Thames
has caused a few ripples. Sue Duncan
enjoys the view

Client
Jeremy Paxton
Architect
Adrian James
Architects
Consulting
Engineer
Alan Barnes
Consulting
Engineers
Contractor
G Cox
Builders
Brickwork
Contractors
Fusion
Brickwork
Contractors
Photographs
Locations
Photography

B
Ballihoo, a new allihoo makes heads turn. Sited
family home on the on the Oxfordshire bank of the
Thames, sits on River Thames at Caversham and
masonry piers visible from Caversham Bridge, from
which are more the towpath on the Berkshire side and
than muscular – from passing river craft, it is an
they may have done assertive and dramatic new presence.
weight training. Its For the owners the views are
innovative design impressive, too. From the first-floor
radically living room, huge picture windows give
re-interprets a grandstand view of river traffic and
boathouse superb vistas up and down river and
architecture while over the Thames floodplain.
developing the Ah yes, the floodplain. Despite the
potential of brick narrowness of the site, which rises from
and steel structural a narrow level strip by the river up a
solutions steep bank to a road at the rear, there
was no question of major
encroachment onto the floodplain. That
the site could be built on at all stems
from an established residential use. An
inhabited boathouse had been on the
1ha site for over 30 years and Reading
Borough Council, the local authority,
was prepared to permit a new dwelling
which was innovative but still in
18 character with the river setting.
Precedent helped with the Environment
Agency too, which granted a license to
overhang the river by the same distance
as the previous building.
The lifestyle brief was for a modern,
flexible home for an active young
family, exploiting the river setting and
giving easy access to the water. The
design responds to the brief and to the
site constraints by taking the building
off the ground and over the water.
A re-interpretation of the decorated
boathouse archetype, it stands on six
pairs of massive piers which support
the steelwork frame, the focal first-
floor accommodation and full-width
balcony, cantilevered out over the river
and large boatdock. The pitched, tile-
clad timber roof has deeply overhanging
eaves, producing a floating effect.
From enclosure into openness
From the road entrance approach,
Ballihoo reveals its surprises only
gradually. A wooden fence screens the
garden from public view and only a
deeply recessed front door pierces the
gable wall forming the entrance
elevation, generating a modest, chapel-
like appearance.
The sequence is one of enclosure
and darkness, progressively opening out
to light and lateral views. The axial
route from the street entrance to the
piano nobile leads past the kitchen,
utility room and stairwell before
expanding into the large, open-plan
living area arranged around a central
fireplace. Light floods into this
magnificent space through full-height
windows on the three aspects. The
south window opens onto the full
width of the site, 4.5m above the river.
The ground-floor is raised 1.3m off
the ground with a 1m high void below
to allow floodwaters unimpeded
passage across the site. A stepped
bridge from the stair hall gives access
to the rear of the boat dock. The back
wall retains the steep bank at the rear
of the property and a separate two-
storey garage and games room is also
built into the bank.
Masonry piers
James’ original design concept involved
a large steel frame with a cantilever
deck. However, with the lateral wind
load anticipated, this would have
entailed too cumbersome a frame –
hence the masonry pier solution. These
simple and powerful verticals are set on
concrete-filled steel drum piles in the
alluvial clay and carry the steel
members, which are expressed at first
floor and second floor levels.
The 6.7m high columns, in brick-
faced loadbearing blockwork, are 1m
deep x 1.7m wide at their base,
reducing via successive plinth details to
1.1m wide at roof level.
A former associate of John Outram,
James is alive to the innovative
potential of brickwork. A blend of
orange-red stock bricks was chosen as
the main brick, with blue engineering
bricks for the first few courses in the
piers, which seem to ground them to
the riverbank. It’s a formula altogether
sympathetic to Reading’s brickwork
tradition, but in a modern, stripped-
down manifestation. Little is allowed to
detract from the rhythm, drama and
sculpted quality of the piers. Openings
are marked with projecting double
creasing tiles, with brick on edge at
heads and with canted brick sills. The
brickwork was not without challenges
for the bricklayers – particularly with
the setting out for each pier: there was
a mere 3mm tolerance.
Ballihoo has made this stretch of
river more exciting, but it also had to
meet more workaday requirements.
Despite the large window expanse, a
SAP rating of 97 has been achieved
through a combination of southerly
aspect, double-glazing, the thermal
mass of the masonry, efficient
insulation and a condensing boiler. U
values for the brick walls are 0.27, and
for the roof 0.21.
Ballihoo should stand the test of
time and whatever the river itself can
throw at it – James is extremely keen to
see the Thames floodwaters rise high
enough to batter against those giant
columns. And lose the fight. 19
 STRUCTURAL BRICKWORK

A civil answer
Peter Watt reports on a scheme which
looks to the future, while harnessing
brickwork’s traditional strengths

Client and An important new civil

T
he Gillingham Northern Link is built mainly between the summer of
Engineer engineering scheme in Phase Two of the Medway 1998 and the following spring. The road
Kent County Kent demonstrates Towns Northern Relief Road, a and full access to the new tunnel were
Council then how the imaginative major transportation improvement opened to public traffic in June 1999.
Medway use of brickwork can project, Phase One of which was a new
Council benefit both road tunnel under the River Medway.
Planning and infrastructure and The new 3km relief road forms the Brickwork structures
Transport built environment. It A289 bypassing Chatham and The Medway Towns have a long
Directorate also disposes of a few Gillingham, linking with the New historical tradition, and brickwork in
misconceptions,
Main Medway Tunnel and also with the buildings and in infrastructure plays a
showing that bricks
Contractors historical Chatham Docks and major role in the vernacular. A
with medium to high
Christiani & Maritime areas. Built to dual significant part of the link road passes
water absorbency and
Nielsen and carriageway standard, it is part new through historically sensitive old
moderate compressive
May Gurney construction and part upgrade of the dockyard and maritime areas which
strength can meet
Joint Venture existing highway infrastructure. boast some very fine free-standing
structural brickwork Work commenced on Gillingham boundary walls in brick that have stood
requirements Northern Link in late 1997 with site for well over 100 years. Some of these
preparation and drainage installation. are very substantial structures.
Principal access and structures were Similar boundary walls can also be

1 Part of new north wall

with planter area. This and
the south wall are both par t
free-standing and part earth
retaining brickwork
structures
2 Earth retaining wall stems
to north and south. Walls
are of reinforced grouted
cavity brickwork with
reinforced brick piers
3 View of south wall
showing approach ramp to
pedestrian over-bridge.
Both north and south walls
are about 1km long with
free-standing parts up to
3m high above finished
ground lines
4 Detail of arch to north
wall pedestrian over-bridge
approach ramp
5 Head detail to north wall.
Although showing English
bond format this free-
standing wall is collar
jointed in parts using pre-
cut snap headers
Peter Watt is 6 Brickwork cladding to
Senior pedestrian over-bridge
approach ramp along the
Structural
north wall. Both spandrels
Engineer at and soffits are brick clad to
BDA match the main walling
structures

1
20
 seen in the towns of Gillingham and
Chatham and many are constructed
around former naval facilities in the
area. For these reasons the choice of
new brickwork structures for the
Gillingham Northern Link formed part
of complementary planning decisions.
The good durability and low
maintenance factors associated with
brickwork construction were also
influential in the choices made.
The two principal brickwork
walling structures in the scheme are the
north and south boundary walls, which
meet the new Medway Tunnel slip
roads. The north wall runs adjacent to
the Chatham Docks and Maritime areas
and is about 1km in continuous length.
It complements and integrates with
existing dockyard walling, parts of
which are retained as fully serviceable
construction. The 1km long south wall
is entirely new.
Both walls are built as part earth-
retaining, part free-standing brickwork
walling structures, the earth retaining
function being required because of level
differences at the carriageway edges.
Like their older counterparts they are
substantial structures. In parts of the
north wall for example, the earth
retaining section starts 2m below
ground: above ground free-standing
elements can rise up to 3m high above
finished ground level.
Earth retaining wall stems are
formed mainly of reinforced grouted
cavity brick construction with a typical
overall wall stem thickness of 300mm.
The free-standing wall stems are
2 3
5 6
constructed using mainly 215mm thick
unreinforced brickwork in English
bond but collar jointed with tie systems
rather than bonded through, a
technique which helps achieve fair
faced brickwork on both sides of a wall
when using stock bricks. Piers are
provided to strengthen the taller free-
standing structures of the north wall.
The simplicity of the structural
brickwork forms used enabled rapid
on-site construction and the brickwork
was completed to schedule despite bad
weather which continued while most of
the principal walling was being built.
In addition to the north and south
walls the Gillingham Northern Link
includes a number of less substantial
free-standing and earth-retaining brick
wall structures at various locations. In
many cases the height of these walls is
less than 1.5m and economical, fully
structural solutions have been provided
by mass brickwork walling, of 215mm
or 328mm stem thickness. Earth
retaining planter walls also use this
form of mass brickwork construction,
providing beneficial environmental
aspects to the link road.
Brickwork is also deployed as
cladding to other structural forms and
features. Abutments to pedestrian and
railway over-bridges are of reinforced
concrete clad in single 102mm
thickness brickwork. The approach
ramp to one pedestrian bridge has been
executed as a series of increasing radii
arches with both arch spandrels and
soffits being fully brick clad to match
the aesthetics of the overall scheme.
4
7
Demolishing a few misconceptions
The majority of both structural and
cladding brickwork has been built in
stock brickwork using a pre-blended
mix of 15 per cent yellow and 85 per
cent red stock bricks to match old
existing walling. The use of a moderate
compressive strength brick unit with
higher than 7 per cent water absorption
demonstrates that major brickwork
free-standing and retaining wall
structures do not rely upon the
use of high strength, low water
absorption clay bricks to achieve
adequate structural and durability
performance.
Damp proof courses in walls have
been formed using low water
absorption bricks in a Designation (i)
mortar as an integral part of wall
stems, thus avoiding the need for
separate (and structurally disruptive)
sheet damp proof courses in structural
walls. Detailing to the head of the
north wall is flush, using special shaped
brick capping, again in sympathy with
existing brickwork.
Gillingham Northern Link
demonstrates the benefits to the
built environment when a major
civil engineering project exploits
both the aesthetic and structural
possibilities of brickwork. When
used to its full structural potential,
brickwork can help achieve
highly competitive and economic
walling solutions. It also provides
an original and attractive alternative
to conventional approaches, while
enhancing the built environment.
21
 HOUSING

Sub-urban Gorbals
Frank Arneil Walker reviews
award-winning housing in Glasgow

Client
New Gorbals
Housing
Association
Architect
Phase 2
Page & Park
Architects
Architect
Phase 3
Elder &
Cannon
Main Contractor
John Dickie
Construction
Photography
David
Churchill

T
The design of Moffat he old Gorbals was black.
Gardens, one more Ordered streets of four-storeyed,
enclave in the stone tenements charred with the
progressive polluted smoke of Victorian industry.
transformation of The not-so-old Gorbals of the 1960s
Glasgow’s Gorbals, was grey. Slabs and towers of concrete,
brought together an brutally big and as brutally bare,
adventurous housing indiscriminately scattered (or so it
association, concerned seemed to the pedestrian) on the tabula
local residents and rasa of comprehensive redevelopment.
three of the city’s The new Gorbals is red – and cream.
leading architectural Brick terraces back to street scale. But
practices. The project is it urban? Perhaps it is too early to
sets a new standard say, for Glasgow’s second resurrection
for collaborative south of the river is still only
creativity questions beginning. But the signs are good, the
just how urban potential recognised recently by the
regeneration of urban Saltire Society’s awards to two related
areas should be housing projects added to the new
brick world across the Clyde.
Moffat Gardens
Moffat Gardens is part of the
22 regeneration programme for East-
Gorbals where the New Gorbals
Housing Association, founded in the
early 1990s, is building on a number of
derelict cleared sites. The achievement,
largely funded by Scottish Homes, is
considerable. First, a masterplan was
prepared. Stimulated by its enterprising
director, Fraser Stewart, the association
entered into discussions with members
of the local community. What emerged
as a priority was a desire to avoid the
monotony and repetitive boredom of
the 1960s and 70s. Consequently the
plan devised by Page & Park Architects
envisaged a variety of housing types
and the creative involvement of several
architectural practices. Their co-
operation would not be limited to the
design of particular housing blocks but
would extend to collaboration on the
choice of materials and forms and,
significantly, to decision-making
affecting the design of the public spaces
unifying the overall layout.
Like most other areas of Gorbals,
the site at Moffat Gardens had all but
lost its urban coherence. Some two-
and three-storey housing had already
been built to the south and west while
a small factory and a single-storey
public house had survived the
ubiquitous demolition. The
association’s plan introduced three new
housing blocks, arranging these in a co-
ordinated relationship which reinforced
the street grid, re-established three- and
four-storey scale, and created a small
park at the centre of what is a
deceptively simple rectilinear layout.
Two of the three blocks were completed
in early summer 1998. Page & Park has
laid a strong three-storey wall of
terrace housing (Phase Two) along
Hayfield Street, toughening the urban
edge of the site opposite the open park.
In the park itself, Elder and Cannon
provided what it describes as a ‘villa
block’, a three- and four-storey building
of flats (Phase Three) standing alone
south of Hayfield Street. Yet to be
completed, the third element in this
collaborative composition is a clever
aggregation of street ranges (Phase
One) designed by Simister Monaghan
Architects to mark the North-west
corner of the Moffat Gardens site.
Brick wall – street wall
Fundamental to the urban intention of
the whole project is the ‘wall’ of
housing along Hayfield Street. This
incorporates 21 two-, three- and four-
person flats, most of which look south
across the street to the park. The wall
is of red wire-cut bricks with a
rusticated texture chosen to maintain
design decisions already made in earlier
neighbouring projects, their planar
consistency of colour intensified here
by matching pointing and a total
abstinence from any kind of patterning
or decorative detail. This principal
elevation is, however, indented at
several points to create balconies; some
merely hole-in-the-wall, but two which
are recessions rising through two
storeys to the overhanging eaves of the
monopitch roof. These inner planes are
lined with silvering western red cedar
boarding which runs horizontally with
the brick coursing. This layering of the
facade has been exploited
asymmetrically to relate to the park
opposite and undoubtedly adds shadow
interest, material change and
proportional intrigue to the street wall.
Windows, painted a dull battleship
grey, exert a regular underlying rhythm
along the wall but the seeming
arbitrariness of indentation and change
of material remains troubling, somehow
less than urban, while the sparred soffit
of the tilted jutting eaves is already a
cliché.
Brick returns at the ends of the
street block but is progressively peeled
away as public space becomes private.
Cream-coloured render is used on the
rear elevation, though here, too, some
cedar boarding provides relief. The
monopitch roof dipping to the rear
reduces the scale appropriately and
allows some variation in ceiling heights
in the cross section. But the large
overhang to the north, impairing the
light quality in the second-floor
bedrooms, seems again an unfortunate
surrender to questionable architectural
fashion.
Tenement in the park
While the unfinished corner housing
across Moffat Street from the west end
of Page & Park’s terrace will add more
street ranges to the new red brick
Gorbals, Elder & Cannon’s tenement in
the park does not. Its open space
location, with only minimal obligation
to respond to the lines of Hayfield
Street and McNeil Street, required –
and received – something completely
different. Fourteen two- and three-
person flats are housed in a free-
standing villa block of two elements – a
four-storey ‘tower’, elliptical in plan,
linked to a three-storey oblong wing.
The curving north and south walls of
the ellipse are built in buff bricks, a
change of colour from the dominant
red but one justified by the special
nature of this object building and
indeed by the nearby use of similar
bricks in a secondary role to the red. At
the east and west ends, where the ends
of the ellipse have been snipped off, the
living rooms are fully glazed. Raised
over the third floor, which has been
copper-lined above sill height to detach
it visually from the brick below, is a
daring elliptical slab of a roof. It too is
copper-clad, oversailing walls and
glazing – a strange chocolate nougat
wafer pressing down on the creamy
brick below. To the south is the lower
block, sensibly reduced in height to
relate to neighbouring housing. Render
dominates in this three-storey wing, a
piece of design which in itself is
persuasively redolent of the 1930s.
Sub-urban success
In almost every way Moffat Gardens is
an exemplary success. It testifies to the
value of consultation with the local
community. It shows what a forceful
enlightened client can achieve. It proves
that leading architects in the city can
compete and collaborate creatively.
Above all it creates a place, distinct and
pleasurable. If there is still rather more
space than place in these open streets,
perhaps it is because in a shrinking city
the new Gorbals must inevitably
become sub-urban. 23
 HOUSING

New East Enders

George Demetri reports on two new
faces of Docklands housing

Developer Two new plush

Bellway residential
Homes developments in
London’s Docklands
Architect
demonstrate the
Robert
important contribution
MacDonald
of facing brickwork in
Associates
modern construction
Contractors and the stunning
Bellway effects that patterning
Homes can achieve
(Poplar)
Bovis
Crowngap
(Limehouse)
Structural
Engineers
Nicholls
Roach
McMahon
(Poplar) 2
Clarke

T
Nicholls 1,2 Limehouse Basin wo private-sector housing
3,4 Poplar Dock
Marcel developments in the flourishing
5 Limehouse Basin
(Limehouse) Docklands area of London
provide ample proof not only of the
Photography effectiveness of patterned brickwork
Locations but also just how exciting brick can be
Photography when used in a contemporary idiom.
Architect Robert MacDonald
Associates has shown that the planar
crispness so admired in modern
architecture can be created as
effectively by brick as it can by
steel, concrete and glass. Furthermore,
in addition to its thermal and
maintenance benefits, this so-called
‘traditional’ material can provide
striking contrasts with the more
modern upstarts.
Bellway Homes was the developer
for the schemes, one at Limehouse
Basin, the other at the Boardwalk in
Poplar Dock. Both are blocks of flats,
topped by the inevitable penthouses.
Concepts
The architect’s desire to provide an
24 expression of modern building
techniques has led to the almost
universal use of stretcher bond,
extending even to the clay-paved areas.
The desire for an abstract as opposed
to a traditional richness has produced a
form of construction which does not
make use of soldier courses and other
typical brickwork details. This results
in what the architect considers to be a
clean, unfussy effect which also
provided savings in construction time.
The resulting horizontality is
accentuated in certain areas by
alternating courses of yellow and bright
red stock bricks, an effect which is a
real delight even when used on multi-
storey panels. Because the banding
breaks up the surface, any colour
discrepancies in each brick type are
harder to discern. Why are such
simple means of articulating large
planes of brickwork not used more
commonly? On the down side,
wandering perpends become more
noticeable. Yet even this is not an
unattractive sight – for anyone wanting
to snuggle up to the brickwork and
gaze skywards.
3 4
5 vertical glazing which give way to
Construction
Both developments have broadly
similar underlying constructions
comprising flat-roofed, concrete-
framed, masonry-clad structures of
varying heights with steel and glass
balconies. A typical wall construction
comprises a 140mm block inner leaf,
78mm partially filled insulated cavity
and a 102mm outer brick leaf, all
achieving a respectable U-value of 0.36.
All internal wall surfaces (including
party walls) have been dry-lined.
Striped brickwork – partly inspired
by a pub in Kentish Town Road, North
London – is common to both schemes,
but is by no means all-pervading, as
there are also substantial areas of buff
stocks which contrast both with other
brickwork and with other materials. At
Limehouse, smooth blue engineering
bricks are used at lower levels, in some
places as plinths and in others as walls
to service areas and external stairs.
Movement joints seem to be
generous throughout. A further benefit
of stripey brickwork is that it provides
excellent camouflage for what can be
unsightly horizontal movement joints
provided at every storey where steel
angles support the brickwork at
concrete edge beams.
Limehouse Basin
This development comprises six multi-
storey blocks clustered around a marina
on a site bounded by Horseferry Road
and Branch Road. All are crowned by
steel and glass penthouses with
dramatic overhanging eaves. What
strikes one immediately is the richness
of colour, material and textural
combinations pervading the entire
scheme. The massing of the various
blocks is enlivened by planes of vibrant
coloured brickwork abutting sheets of
planes of coloured render. Square
windows have been used throughout as
an ordering element.
The architect has employed different
treatments to express the various
volumes, provide visual interest and
help break down the scale of the
development. This plurality of colour
and texture is continued on horizontal
surfaces, resulting in a hierarchical
treatment of landscape from public to
semi-public space. Buff clay pavers
around the marina give way to concrete
setts and finally to crisply laid creamy
concrete flags edged by off-white gravel
immediately in front of the main
entrances to the blocks. The effort
expended in creating such detailed
landscaping is justified by the likely
scrutiny of residents gazing down from
their windows and balconies.
One of the reasons for clustering
the blocks around the marina was to
provide as many flats as possible with
views over Docklands and the
surrounding regions. Steel and glass
balconies are used throughout for this
purpose. However, the architects’ desire
to recreate the industrial warehouse
aesthetic, so much a part of the area,
has resulted in a gridwork of dark,
foreboding steelwork balconies
superimposed over some of the marina
elevations which add a heavy, sombre
note to what is otherwise a rich and
lively development.
The Boardwalk, Poplar
The apartment blocks at the Boardwalk
development beside Poplar Dock are
arranged in a more urban configuration
than those at Limehouse. There is also
a greater emphasis on low-rise
development inherited from the density
requirements of the former London
Docklands Development Corporation.
The three-storey townhouses with buff
brickwork and Georgian panelled front
doors sit rather incongruously amid a
generally bold, confident and colourful
contemporary development.
The three-storey perimeter blocks in
Trafalgar Way face Billingsgate Market,
and Canary Wharf looms on the
horizon. Yet for a split second you
might think you were in Rotterdam, so
strong are the Dutch references on
these elevations, with a touch of de Stijl
here and a just a hint of Mondrian
there. Sculptural forms are broken
down into elemental planes using
varying materials, colours and textures.
Thus, the striped brickwork on one side
is balanced by a rich, earthy, red-
rendered plane on the other, both
separated by a chasm of dark steelwork
balconies against a bright yellow
background.
Detractors may scoff at what they
might construe as an exercise in
facadism applied over both sites. Yet
even if this were true, the ends have
certainly justified the means, with both
the East End developments in both
Limehouse and Poplar achieving
some very attractive environments in
which to live. 25
 PUBLIC BUILDING

Stage presence
A bemused Sutherland Lyall reports on
a new theatre where brick is centre stage

Client Sustainability and eco-

Contact design have become
Theatre serious issues in
architecture – and
Architect
have begun to provide
Short and
a kind of rationale for
Associates
new ways of designing
Structural form. Brick has an
engineers important part to play
Modus in this movement
Mechanical and
electrical
engineer
Max Fordham
& Partners
Contractor
Ballast
Wiltshier
Photography
Positive Image

A
lan Short, architect and
professor at de Montfort
University, claims that ‘our
buildings are getting heavier.’ His most
recent completed work following his
Queen’s building at de Montfort is the
refurbishment and expansion of the
Contact Theatre in Manchester.
You’re driving up Manchester’s
Oxford Road and you’ve almost got
26 through the university quarter when
you skid to a halt because over there on
the right beyond a recently cleared-out
square is this extraordinary sight. A
pale brick, three- or four-storey ramble
of a building with a kind of apron
down one of the front facades in waves
of overlapping metal sheeting and,
balancing precariously 40m up above,
this amazing jumble of dislocated brick
chimney things. You think
Expressionism, maybe Steiner, maybe

Ton Albers, perhaps Michael Hopkins
and his vast chimneys opposite Big Ben
and at Nottingham – and of course
Alan Short a couple of years ago at de
Montfort university. For this is the
work of his office.
Expressive
The overlapping zinc sheeting reminds
you simultaneously of half-stripped
theatre billboards waiting for the
elaborately edited reviews for the next
shows – and those big, painted tin faces
you find as entrances to Lunar Parks all
over the world. But never before have
you seen anything like those gigantic,
crazy, chimney structures tottering up
there in the sky. This is England. This is
England under the planning system
yoke and you find yourself astonished
that the planners didn’t go into
terminal, total paroxysmal mode before
letting such an extraordinary show to
go ahead.
But yes they did and here it is and
what can anyone possibly make of it?
There is more rooftop fun with a row
of crenellated zinc-clad chimney-style
structures marching at an angle of 45º
across the back of the building. This
latter assemblage is actually above the
heavily refurbished sixties theatre
which follows the orthogonal layout of
the streets. Short says he would have
preferred brick for these roof structures
too but the old theatre roof had not
been designed to take that kind of load.
To the left in front of the old
theatre is an office and rehearsal block
whose lower section involves a
complicated screen of brick and
somewhat Steineresque precast-concrete
detailing behind which is an external
staircase to the first floor. Fronting the
lower adjacent block (with three
conventional dormers jutting up
beyond the eaves) are four single-storey,
perforated brick sheds with outrageous
peaked roofs. Over on the right beside
the zinc waves is a brick cylinder
containing a staircase with lavatories
and storage rooms in its core.
Sustainability
You look a bit harder at the chimney
assemblage and it begins to make a
kind of visual sense. The slender
unreinforced brick supports rise from a
curving stripped-baroque base and
there are metal struts and ties holding
the mass of overhead brick together. It
is, argues Short, to do with the
practice’s affection for Viollet-le-Duc
and his casual mixing of traditional and
cutting edge construction methods –
and the sympathetic know-how of
engineer Steve Morley. It turns out that
the great brick array in the sky, like the
zinc-clad array on the roof slanting
away to the left, is a series of
interlinked H-shaped pot-style
ventilators. For this is a building whose
design is predicated to a fairly high
degree on its non-mechanical
environmental conditioning.
Fast
With conventional conditioning you
pump air in from outside through,
depending on the sophistication of the
system, washers and filters and heating
and cooling elements. You then
distribute it through ducts or plenums
to the working spaces and exhaust it
back to the outside via, say, ceiling
ducts. All the ducts can be quite small
because the fans push the air along at a
relatively high speed. However, air
handling costs a lot and if there is not a
dedicated building management and 27

maintenance team, environmental
conditioning systems can go wrong. In
the old Contact Theatre there was a
tendency to switch off the mechanical
ventilation because fan noise interfered
with performances. So the theatre
people were very receptive when Alan
Short suggested a non-mechanical air-
handling building for their ultimately
successful Lottery bid.
Slow
It is a system which deploys the
relatively well understood ‘stack effect’.
Slow-moving air is sucked into the
building at ground level where it is
heated (or not) and is slowly evacuated
at roof level. The principle is simple,
but there are other issues. Short says:
28 ‘If you are forcing air into a building
you can do it through small holes. But
if you are letting it drift in you need big
openings at top and bottom. There is a
big rock venue next door and a
university audiometry department
nearby so there is a special need on this
site to somehow kill the noise from
outside – and stop it escaping. You also
need, with big openings, to devise a
way of keeping the rain out.’
And that is how the idea of the H
pot configuration developed, following
research by engineers Max Fordham
into ways of avoiding downdrafts and
attenuating noise – for which brick is
apparently an ideal material. The
towering height is a consequence of the
need to have the outlet ventilation as
high as possible above the building and
surrounding ridgelines. Short explains,
‘There are tall university building of
seven or so storeys in the direction of
the prevailing wind. The stack principle
works with very low pressure
differences and if it is reversed you can
get into trouble: serious trouble as we
discovered when we saw the results of
wind-tunnel testing by the Welsh
School of Architecture.’
Brick interiors
Although the zinc waves down the
front elevation are attention grabbing,
you enter the building by marching up
to the facade and then turning sharp
left through an airlock of conventional
glass doors leading to the box office
and then the café. Stairs lead up to the
lobby of the main theatre, a lift takes
you up to the studio theatre and
rehearsal space. Although the building
is labyrinthine there is no especial
reason why a theatre complex should
not, in time-honoured fashion, be
exactly that.
There is quite a lot of brickwork
internally with some dramatic curving
upper walls around the main theatre
lobby. The building relies on heavy
internal masonry to maintain thermal
stability. Here Short has used calcium-
silicate bricks. He’s a real enthusiast –
particularly because of their precision
and their range of colours. It needs to
be said that these features are only
partly supported by the reality. Because
the joints are raked quite deeply and
the individual bricks are so sharp
edged, you immediately notice any
irregularity in bricklaying.
Brick exteriors
The exterior bricks are mellow red soft
mud bricks which, although machine-
made, have the irregular, random
appearance of handmade bricks. Short
says that whenever it is possible he
likes to use local sand for mortar. But
it’s impossible to maintain consistency
and colour on a big job. So he
reluctantly used a premixed mortar: ‘a
natural mortar with a bit of colour in it
to make it look more natural,’ he notes
sardonically.
Form follows …
It is a little difficult not to keep your
fingers crossed behind your back when
you nod agreement as the apparently
inevitable logic of the Contact Theatre’s
design unfolds. This is actually a design
of great joy, some inevitable infelicities
of detail design and madness and,
judging by the casual comfortableness
of the users, a design of sound method.
But it would be a pity if anybody came
away with the notion that this building
was the outcome merely of cold
rational reasoning.
 RESTORATION

1 Wash and brush up on JLE

Michael Hammett takes a look at the
nineteenth-century brickwork put to new
use at London Bridge Station

Brick masonry is one

Client Underground station and between it
of civilisation’s most
London and the mainline concourse.
enduring artefacts.
Transport: The warehousing was served by
Robust and durable,
Jubilee Line three public roads that run below the
undemanding of
Extension station, linking Tooley Street on the
maintenance, it can
Project north side to St Thomas Street on the
often survive its
south. The most westerly of these,
Architects original purpose by
Joiner Street, has been closed for
JLE Architects centuries. When
incorporation of the space into the new
and Weston alterations and
station. As trafficked and storage areas
Williamson restructuring at
they were never required to be
London Bridge Station
Main Contractor habitable or high-quality spaces and
were undertaken to
Costain Taylor basic civil engineering construction in
provide access to the
Woodrow JV mass brickwork was therefore
new Jubilee Line
considered appropriate. No barrier to
Specialist sub- extension of the
moisture is normally incorporated in
contractor London Underground,
such construction, and there was no
J&W extensive brickwork
particular concern about staining
Renovation Co below the original
caused by the inevitable percolation of
station, built in the
Main photography moisture from above.
1830s, was pressed
QA Photos
into new service
Entrance
photography
A new look for the old brickwork
2 New access and communication routes
Dennis Gilbert
within the station complex and a new

Michael 1 Precast-concrete ceiling
panels with brick-slip facing
Hammett is in the new ticket hall of the
Senior Architect Underground station
at BDA emulate the vaulting of the
old brickwork
2 Typical state of the
brickwork masonry to be
reused
L
ondon Bridge has always been a
mainline railway terminal into
which trains run on viaducts
from the counties to the South-east of
the city. To be at the same level as the
trains, the passenger concourse is raised
above the neighbouring streets on a
complex of vaulted spaces. These are of
traditional, heavy, brickwork
construction in semicircular barrel
forms, some of which intersect at right
angles to create large floor areas roofed
by groined vaulting bearing on
freestanding piers.
The bold structural forms of these
spaces, which have been used
predominantly for bonded
warehousing, give them an imposing
appearance. Rather than demolish and
clear away the masonry to make way
for a new installation, the existing
structure was modified to create major
passenger access ways to the new
Underground station have required
intricate planning and implementation.
However, it has proved economical and
practical to form new openings in the
existing brickwork, remove walls and
effect alternative support for some of
the vaulting to create attractive and
exciting new facilities while
maintaining support of the existing
mainline station above.
An important part of converting the
old brick structure was extensive
cleaning. During 160 or so years of
service, percolation of moisture from
above has led to leaching of lime and
salts down through the masonry, and
this has produced extensive staining
and encrustation on the surface of the
brickwork. Some surfaces have, from
time to time, been decorated with lime
distemper, but otherwise there has been
little if any maintenance work. The
brickwork in Stainer and Weston 29
 3
4 inserted to resettle the vaulting on the
Streets, the roadways under the station
that remain open, still shows the
considerable accumulation of lime
encrustation, leached deposits from the
masonry, hydrocarbon and other
airborne pollutants, dirt and grime that
has built up on the surface.
Two principal methods of cleaning
might be considered appropriate –
chemical cleaning and abrasive blasting.
The latter was chosen because it was
considered that it offers more control.
The pressure of the blasting must be
regulated very carefully to avoid
excessive scouring of the mortar and
damage to the surface of the bricks.
Developments in equipment, abrasives
and blasting techniques have improved
considerably within the last decade.
Harsh blast cleaning that results in the
removal of the surface of bricks along
with stains and blemishes should
rightfully be regarded as crude,
30 insensitive and inept.
Specialist contractors were invited
to survey the brickwork and tender for
its cleaning, repair and modification.
Part of the negotiations included
execution of trials to demonstrate
proposed techniques and their results.
Requirements of Health and Safety
legislation govern many techniques
used in cleaning masonry. In addition,
at London Bridge the presence of a
tunnelling access point for the Jubilee
Line Extension adjacent to the areas to
be cleaned imposed additional
restrictions – no dust or fumes could be
produced that might be drawn down
into the tunnel. Blasting with water-
borne abrasives rather than with dry
ones is generally preferable, because the
latter generates excessive dust – a risk
to health. However, large quantities of
water are used with the former method
and that would also have been
unacceptable. As a compromise,
blasting was done with a minimum-
3 The newly cleaned groined vaulting of the
escalator hall below the main line station concourse
4 The new entrance to the underground station –
formerly Joiner Street
water slurry of fine olivine abrasive.
This removes dirt, but clings to the
brickwork, necessitating a rinse with
clean water. Clinging slurry also
obscures the work and repeated blasting
is often necessary. All run-off had to be
collected in tanks and removed.
At each end of the escalator hall
(below the mainline station concourse)
new reinforced-concrete beams were
inserted to support sections of the
vaulting. Shoring needles were inserted
through the vaulting just above the new
support level and the brickwork below
removed. Once the new beams were in
place, new sections of brickwork were
new support. For aesthetic reasons, face
brickwork in these areas was rebuilt,
using reclaimed bricks jointed in
natural hydraulic lime mortar to match
the original. Where unaltered, the
cleaned brickwork was carefully
repointed.
The realistic appreciation of the
results of cleaning is very important.
The original brickwork at London
Bridge was never intended to provide
dry interiors and fine finishes and some
dampness and staining as a result of
percolation from above had been
tolerated. It would be unreasonable to
expect cleaning to result in pristine
brickwork that would henceforth
maintain a fine and unblemished
appearance. Happily the supervising
architect understood properly the
rugged, workaday nature of the
structure and his expectation that the
cleaned brickwork should have a
‘romantic’ character has been
interpreted very well indeed.

1 2
3 4
W
hen dimensioning brickwork,
and positioning and sizing
openings, it is preferable to
use increments based on the length of a
brick, then no cut bricks will be
required and brickwork around open-
ings will be symmetrical and the bond
regular. However, this is not always
possible and these notes deal with
accommodating opening widths that
are not of whole brick increments of
standard metric bricks, particularly
openings for ‘Co-ordinated Size
Components’, a standard range of door
and window units of metric modular
co-ordinated sizes (typically required
for health service buildings designed in
compliance with Health Technical
Memorandum no 55 ).
DESIGN GUIDANCE
Brickwork openings
Malcolm Barnett examines how to use
brickwork dimensions in your favour
Figure1: It is often possible to base
overall dimensions on whole brick
increments, but not always to size and
position openings to suit. Half-brick
increments should be the second prefer-
ence. This will result in either broken
bond (alternate courses of half and two
cut bricks above and below the centre
of the opening) or reverse bond.
Figure 2: With reverse bond the
jambs of an opening are not symmetri-
cal – not generally obvious except
where the jamb bricks are a contrasting
colour.
Figure 3: When openings cannot be
of brick dimensions, for example when
using some ‘Co-ordinated Size
Components’, dimension brickwork
between them using whole brick incre-
ments, accepting that the overall length
of the wall will not be a brick dimen-
sion and broken bond will occur at the
centre of the openings.
Figure 4: If there are overriding rea-
sons for making the overall length of
the wall a brick dimension, for example
where a large expanse of multi-storey
brickwork has a few openings at one
level, the openings should be positioned
with their centre lines on brick dimen-
sions. There will be no broken bond
above or below the openings, but cut
bricks will be necessary in the brick-
work between some openings
depending on their size and spacing.
Malcolm Barnett is Education Architect
at the BDA. Contact him for details of
CPD and university lecture services 31
 Ambion Brick Co Ltd Chelwood Brick Limited Kingscourt Brick
Swan House, Bosworth Hall, The Park, Adswood Road, Cheadle Hulme, Kingscourt, County Cavan,
Market Bosworth, Warwickshire Cheadle, Cheshire SK8 5QY Ireland
CV13 0LJ Tel 0161 485 8211 Tel +353 (0)42 9667317
Tel 01455 292888 Fax 0161 486 1968 Fax +353 (0)42 9667206
Fax 01455 292877
Email sales@ambion.co.uk Chiddingstone Brickworks Ltd Marshalls Clay Products Ltd
Northern Sales Office Bore Place, Chiddingstone, Head Office
Tel 01388 603008 Edenbridge, Southowram, Halifax,
South East Sales Office Kent TN8 7AR West Yorks HX3 9SY
Tel 01403 241555 Tel 01732 463712 Tel 01422 306000
South West Sales Office Fax 01732 740264 Fax 0113 220 3555
Tel 01752 880659 Sales Office Howley Park
Coleford Brick & Tile Co Ltd Woodkirk, Dewsbury,
Baggeridge Brick plc The Royal Forest of Dean Brickworks, West Yorks WF12 7JJ
Fir Street, Sedgley, Dudley, Cinderford, Gloucestershire GL14 3JJ Tel 0113 220 3535
West Midlands DY3 4AA Tel 01594 822160 Scotland Sales Office
Tel 01902 880555 Fax 01594 826655 Tel 0141 333 0985
Fax 01902 880432
Sedgley Sales Office WH Collier Limited Normanton Brick Co Ltd
Tel 01902 880666 Adswood Road, Cheadle Hulme, Wakefield Road Brickworks,
Kingsbury Sales Office Cheadle, Cheshire SK8 5QY Normanton,
Tel 01827 260022 Tel 0161 485 8211 West Yorkshire WF6 1BG
Waresley Sales Office Fax 0161 486 1968 Tel 01924 892142
Tel 01299 251300 Fax 01924 223455
Hartlebury Sales Office Dennis Ruabon Limited
Tel 01299 250400 Hafod Tileries, Ruabon, Northcot Brick Limited
Baggeridge Brick Consultancy Wrexham LL14 6ET Blockley, Near Moreton-in-Marsh,
Tel 0207 2366222 Tel 01978 843484 Gloucestershire GL56 9LH
Rudgwick Sales Office Fax 01978 843276 Tel 01386 700551
Tel 01403 822212 Fax 01386 700852
Freshfield Lane Brickworks Limited
Beacon Hill Brick Company Ltd Danehill, Haywards Heath, Ormonde Brick Ltd
Wareham Road, Corfe Mullen, Sussex RH17 7HH Castlecomber, County Kilkenny,
Wimborne, Dorset BH21 3RX Tel 01825 790350 Ireland
Tel 01202 697633 Fax 01825 790779 Tel +353 (0)56 41323
Fax 01202 605141 Email sales@flb.uk.com www.flb.uk.com Fax +353 (0)56 41314
Email sales@beaconhill-brick.co.uk
www.beaconhill-brick.co.uk Hammill Brick Limited Phoenix Brick Company Ltd
Eastry, Sandwich, The Brickworks, Campbell Drive,
Blockleys Brick Ltd Kent CT13 0EH Barrow Hill,
Sommerfeld Road, Trench Lock, Tel 01304 617613 Chesterfield S43 3PR
Telford, Shropshire TF1 5RY Fax 01304 611036 Tel 01246 473171
Tel 01952 251933 Fax 01246 280345
Fax 01952 641900 Hanson Bricks Europe
Email tech.info@blockleys.com Stewartby, Bedford MK43 9LZ Red Bank Manufacturing Co Ltd
www.blockleys.com London Measham, Swadlincote
Sales Office and Showroom Tel 08705 258258 Derbyshire DE12 7EL
Tel 01952 251933 Kempston Tel 01530 270333
Export Sales Office Tel 08705 258258 Fax 01530 273667
Tel 01952 251934 Butterley Email
Tel 08705 258258 redbank-manufacturing@dial.pipex.com
Bovingdon Brickworks Ltd Desimpel
Pudds Cross, Bovingdon, Tel 08705 258258 Redland Tile & Brick
Near Hemel Hempstead, Fax 01234 762041 Sales and admin
Hertfordshire HP3 0NW www.hanson-brickseurope.com 61 Largy Road, Crumlin,
Tel 01442 833176 Co Antrim BT29 4RR
Fax 01442 834539 Ibstock Brick Ltd Tel 02894 422791
Email Ibstock, Leicestershire, LE67 6HS Fax 02894 422165
lescook@bovingdonbrick.sagehost.co.uk Tel 01530 261999 www.redland-tile-brick.co.uk
Fax 01530 257457
Broadmoor Brickworks Ltd www.ibstock.co.uk Sussex Hand Made Brick Ltd
Whimsey, Cinderford Scotland Fourteen Acre Lane
Gloucester GL14 3JA Glasgow Tel 0870 9034001 Three Oaks
Tel 01594 822255 North West Hastings
Fax 01594 826782 Roughdales Tel 0870 9034002 East Sussex TN35 4NB
Parkhouse Tel 0870 9034007 Tel 01424 814344
The Bulmer Brick & Tile Co Ltd North East Fax 01424 814707
Brickfields, Bulmer, Sudbury, Suf folk Nostell Tel 0870 9034003
CO10 7EF Throckley Tel 0870 9034004 The Wemyss Brick Co Ltd
Tel 01787 269232 Eastern 45-49 Cowley Street, Methil,
Fax 01787 269040 Leicester Tel 0870 9034008 Fife KY8 3QQ
Dorket Head Tel 0870 9034009 Tel 01592 712313
Carlton Brick Ltd Hathernware Tel 0870 9034016 Fax 01592 716349
Grimethorpe, Near Barnsley, West Midlands Email wemyssbrickco@btinternet.com
South Yorkshire S72 7BG Lodge Lane Tel 0870 9034006 www.wemyssbrick.co.uk
Tel 01226 711521 South West
Fax 01226 780417 Cattybrook Tel 0870 9034010 The York Handmade Brick Co Ltd
Direct Sales Line Pinhoe Tel 0870 9034011 Forest Lane, Alne,
© 2000 Tel 01226 715000 South East York YO61 1TU
The Brick Laybrook Tel 0870 9034012 Tel 01347 838881
Development Charnwood Forest Brick Limited London Fax 01347 838885
Association Limited Old Station Close, Shepshed, London Tel 0870 9034013 Email sales@yorkhandmade.co.uk
Woodside House Leicestershire LE12 9NJ
Winkfield Tel 01509 503203
Windsor Fax 01509 507566
Berks SL4 2DX
Tel 01344 885651
Fax 01344 890129
E-mail
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