The a bc of brick

It has gone through fashions and eras, marrying many styles. Renowned for its charm and its solidity (remember the houses of the three little pigs…), the brick piles up the advantages by fitting into our architectural daily life. World competitions even reward those who handle it brilliantly. Here is an alphabet of the small block of clay, in the company of a materials professional and a Montreal architect.

Sylvain Sarrazin
The Press

A for Adaptable

Being rigid and flexible at the same time is possible: the brick presents a wide range of colors, textures and shapes, allowing different creative modulations. This is why the AdHoc architecture agency quickly integrated it into several award-winning projects. “We like to work with multi-tone brick, which gives a lot of richness and depth. As it is a very small module, it allows you to play with various types of layouts, it is comparable to knitting, “says Jean-François St-Onge, creative director of the Montreal firm, illustrating his point with the Inverness project, with its bricks arranged cantilevered.

Michel Deraiche, sales manager at Montreal Brique et Pierre, specifies that in addition to the traditional clay brick, there are also concrete and silica bricks (resistant to very high temperatures), constituting the trio most used in North America. “Despite their different characteristics, they all meet the same performance standards,” he says. They will differ in the choice of colors: if the clay has an interesting but limited palette, the concrete can be tinted in any shade.

B for Cheap

Another advantage of brick is its price, especially compared to that of stone, another highly prized material with similar characteristics. “Per square foot, brick is much less expensive than natural, and even artificial, stone,” says Deraiche. Also, brick weathered the crisis of soaring material costs with less turbulence. “We have seen a relative stability in the price of bricks, unlike those of wood or aluminum which have experienced very high inflation: it rose by 15% during COVID-19, when we are talking about 30 40% for other materials,” Mr. St-Onge tells us.

C for Competition

Ingeniously arranged, the bricks can lead to spectacular results. So much so that various international competitions reward the greatest successes in this area, such as the Brick in Architecture prizes (North America) or the Brick Award prize (international, established in Europe). In Quebec, Murus prizes are awarded to remarkable masonry works. Browsing through the finalist projects is worth a look!

D for Sustainable

In addition to its flexibility of use, the quality brick also shines by its ability to withstand the test of time. Jean-François St-Onge, of the AdHoc architectural firm, for example, evokes the old industrial complexes in southwestern Montreal, often more than a hundred years old. “Yes, it has created a patina, but it is still very beautiful and people appreciate it, whereas other buildings, for example in aluminium, have become bland and stained”, he remarks. His agency often uses brick for residential rental buildings. “For this kind of project, we are interested in timelessness, because our client will rent and re-let it for the next 50 or 60 years. Brick is one of the elements to ensure its durability. »

E for Energetic/Ecological

The thermal properties of the material are no longer presented. “In winter, it protects from the cold, and its passive side means that it absorbs heat in summer. Brick houses thus remain much cooler than with metal or other siding,” recalls Mr. Deraiche, of Montréal Brique et Pierre. For the architects of AdHoc, it also presents an ecological side linked to its production. “Clay extraction does not require large mines that are very deep, polluting and disfiguring the landscape. It also takes a lot less energy to produce than concrete,” says the creative director. Cases of successful mine conversions have resulted in the formation of marshes and the revitalization of local biodiversity. And maybe you’ve heard of Brique Recyc, a machine designed by Quebec’s Maçonnerie Gratton to recycle and reuse old bricks?

F for faults

Brick collects trumps, but is not perfect. Among its drawbacks: its heavy weight, and the need to couple it with solid structures, which can lead to additional costs, especially if you try to offset it, explains architect Jean-François St-Onge. “It is a stable material that does not expand, unlike wood. Therefore, as soon as there is movement in the building, cracks can appear, which is why a good back structure is really needed. »

G for Taste of the day

What are the brick trends? According to the sales manager of Montreal Brique et Pierre, black, white and gray hues have taken precedence over the traditional red. “In the early 2000s, the trend in the residential market was the Victorian look, like in Blainville, where there are a lot of red, ocher and brown houses. Today, it’s very linear, with longer, thinner bricks,” he notes. On the AdHoc side, we notice a shift towards very light tones, such as white and pale gray.

H for history

Used for millennia (it can be found as early as the Mesopotamian civilization), brick is part of the history of our towns and regions. In Quebec, its use was introduced by the British at the end of the 18th century.^e century, prized for industrial and public buildings in the 19th^ebefore being picked up by the residential market in the XX^e, according to an interesting historical account by the academic Martin Dubois. Today, it is found mainly in urban centers throughout the province and some suburbs.

The challenge posed by new constructions remains to establish a link between the past and the present. “We do contextualized projects, to reinterpret elements of traditional architecture in a contemporary way. We create sets of bricks that create a dialogue with the past and our residential heritage, but with a contemporary vision,” emphasizes Mr. St-Onge. For example, for La Géode, a project in the Plateau, arrangements of bricks around the windows evoke the spandrels of the time, while giving an impression of enlargement. International influences can also come into play, such as a layout inspired by North African moucharabiehs, that is to say streaked with small openings.

I for Import

The era of clay brick manufacturing is coming to an end in Quebec, with the closure of the Meridian operating site in La Prairie in 2017, although concrete bricks continue to be produced locally. To date, importation takes precedence: “The clay brick comes to us from Halifax, around Toronto, and from the United States, in particular from the Ohio Valley”, informs us Michel Deraiche, taking as an example the main pavilion of the University of Montreal and many public buildings in Montreal, built using beige bricks typical of this American region.