BRICK BULLETIN

External expressions: Allies and Morrison profiled

China’s first Passivhaus at Shanghai’s Expo 2010
Silence speaks: David Richmond at Douai Abbey
Edward Cullinan Architects on Clink Street
First Person: Richard Hill of Richard Griffiths Architects
AUTUMN 2010 Gerald Lynch on gauged brickwork | Stack bonding
 BRICK BULLETIN AUTUMN 2010

Contents Face values

4 NEWS As Martin Pearce suggests in
Projects in London and Sheffield; brick his profile of Allies &
awards shortlist; First Person – Richard Morrison, the design of facades
Hill of Richard Griffiths Associates. is something that can at first
6 PROJECTS baffle students. The design of
Spengler Wiescholek, Rivington Street plans and sections seems to
Studio, David Richmond & Partners, arise with comparative ease,
Edward Cullinan Architects, McMorran & but with elevations they tend
Gatehouse Architects, Squire & Partners, to resort to pattern-making.
Anagram Architects, de Architekten Cie. In this respect, he says, Allies &
12 PROFILE Morrison’s brick buildings are
Martin Pearce on Allies & Morrison’s exemplary and remind us that
approach to facade design. facades can be ‘meaningful,
18 PRECEDENT substantial and poetic’.
Gerard Lynch on gauged brickwork. Katherina Lewis
22 TECHNICAL
To find out more about the bricks or pavers
Stack-bonded brickwork explained. in featured projects, or to submit work, email
[email protected] or phone 020 7323 7030.

BDA member companies

Blockleys Brick t +44 (0)1952 251933 www.michelmersh.com
Bovingdon Brickworks t +44 (0)1442 833176 www.bovingdonbricks.co.uk
Broadmoor Brickworks t +44 (0)1594 822255 [email protected]
Bulmer Brick & Tile Co t +44 (0)1787 269 232 [email protected]
Caradale Traditional Brick t +44 (0)1501 730671 www.caradale.co.uk
Carlton Brick t +44 (0)1226 711521 www.carltonbrick.co.uk
Charnwood Forest Brick t +44 (0)1509 503203 www.michelmersh.com
Chartwell Brickworks t +44 (0)1732 463712 www.chartwellbrickworks.com
Coleford Brick & Tile t +44 (0)1594 822160 www.colefordbrick.co.uk
Dunton Brothers t +44 (0)1494 772111 www.michelmersh.com
Freshfield Lane Brickworks t +44 (0)1825 790350 www.flb.uk.com
Furness Brick & Tile Co t +44 (0)1229 462411 www.furnessbrick.com
Hanson UK t +44 (0)870 609 7092 www.hanson.com/uk
HG Matthews t +44 (0)1494 758212 www.hgmatthews.com
Ibstock Brick t +44 (0)1530 261999 www.ibstock.co.uk
Ketley Brick t +44 (0)1384 78361 www.ketley-brick.co.uk
Lagan Brick t +353 (0)42 9667317 www.laganbrick.com
Michelmersh Brick & Tile t +44 (0)1794 368506 www.michelmersh.com
AJ Mugridge t +44 (0)1952 586986 www.ajmugridge.co.uk
Normanton Brick t +44 (0)1924 892142
Northcot Brick t +44 (0)1386 700551 www.northcotbrick.co.uk
Ormonde Brick t +353 (0)56 4441323 www.ormondebrick.ie
Phoenix Brick Company t +44 (0)1246 471576 www.bricksfromphoenix.co.uk
Wm C Reade of Aldeburgh t +44 (0)1728 452982 [email protected]
Swarland Brick Co t +44 (0)1665 574229 [email protected]
Tower Brick & Tile t +44 (0)1420 488489 www.towerbrickandtile.co.uk
Tyrone Brick t +44 (0)28 8772 3421 www.tyrone-brick.com
The York Handmade Brick Co t +44 (0)1347 838881 www.yorkhandmade.co.uk
WH Collier t +44 (0)1206 210301 www.whcollier.co.uk
Wienerberger t +44 (0)161 4918200 www.wienerberger.co.uk

Brick Bulletin Autumn 2010

Executive editor: Katherina Lewis
t: 020 7323 7030 e: [email protected]
Frontispiece Brick Development Association, The Building
Amsterdam Symphony, Centre, 26 Store Street, London, WC1E 7BT
by de Architekten Cie
(ph: Daria Scagliola). The BDA represents manufacturers of clay
brick and pavers in the UK and Ireland and
Cover promotes excellence in the architectural,
City Inn, Leeds, by Allies structural and landscape applications of brick
& Morrison (ph: Dennis
Gilbert/View). and pavers. The BDA provides practical,
technical and aesthetic advice and information
Back cover through its website www.brick.org.uk, in its
H10 Waterloo hotel, numerous publications and over the phone.
London, by Maccreanor
Lavington (ph: Hufton ISSN 0307-9325 Published by the BDA ©2010
& Crow). Editorial and design: Architecture Today plc
2 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 3
NEWS FIRST PERSON

Block house is made from brick common approach among conservation archi-
tects, perhaps the dominant one.
A striking two-storey masonry house by Block At Kings Cross Goods Yard we are working
Architecture has started work on site in (with Argent, BAM Construct and Stanton
Hampstead, north London. Required by Williams) on the conservation of Lewis
Camden Council to retain the scale and Cubbitt’s sublime Granary Building. It is a
proportions of a derelict cottage that had giant brick box, standing at the head of the
previously occupied the site, the ground floor railway sheds, and designed in restrained
facade steps back from the street and will be classical style. Here our problem is quite dif-
‘veiled’ with a growing screen of virginia creep- ferent from that at Eastbury. We don’t want
er. Controlled transparency extends to the to disrupt the unity of the composition, so a
building fabric with a perforated brick screen patchwork effect would be unwelcome.
enclosing the upper terrace which is then Moreover we want to keep the deep staining
reversed to form brick protrusions around the of the brickwork left by a century and more
remaining envelope. Projecting brickwork will of coal smoke. The Granary is one of the few
also articulate the gable-end facade and act as buildings left in central London that shows
a physical deterrent to would-be tag artists. the effect of nineteenth century pollution
and is therefore a historical document of
Diamonds are forever in Sheffield Richard Hill some importance. The newly pointed and
repaired areas have had coats of sootwash
Due to complete on site in January 2011, Conservation architects spend much of their (with soot carefully removed from the chim-
Lindsay Road is a residential scheme by FAT time with bricks: we live in a brick building neys of the nearby Great Northern Hotel)
comprising 35 new homes in Parson’s Cross, culture that goes back centuries. However our and the photographs of work in progress
Sheffield. The houses are laid out as a series involvement with brick at Richard Griffiths show that we have achieved a consistency of
of terraces arranged around a large public Architects is greatly varied and seems to be effect as if nothing had happened.
garden. Variations in brick colour and pattern getting more so. For a number of years we Half a mile away, at St Pancras, we are work-
create a sense of rhythm, while also subtly have worked on phases of repair and conser- ing with brick in another way. Together with
differentiating the individual housing units. vation to the brickwork of Eastbury Manor, many design partners (the team is led by
A repeating diamond motif is intended to a sixteenth century gentry house in east RHWL) and a superb team of bricklayers we
evoke the Arts and Crafts movement as well as London. The specification and workmanship are building an extension to George Gilbert
traditional English housing types. The overlaid of the repairs follow the lead of the existing Scott’s hotel, following the example of his
fenestration interacts with and informs the work but we don’t expect it to match in. It flexible neo-Gothic idiom. The brick comes
facade patterns. Texture is introduced using may do so eventually, and in the meantime from the same location that supplied Scott’s
three different types of brick: a rough brown, the wall will have the gentle patchwork effect building (and, incidentally, the British Library
a metallic blue engineering, and a smooth that we value in many old buildings. This is a just over the road). Of course there is a steel
white. The developer is Great Places.
frame behind the brick – in fact it is a very
complex transfer structure spanning across
the service spaces below – but we have aimed
to achieve something of the scale, massiveness
and play of light and shadow that can be
found in neo-Gothic buildings. In doing so we
are very aware that we have broken with Arts
& Crafts and modernist principles, strictly
understood. As the pictures show, the building
Brick Awards shortlist announced is still under construction but when it is fully
visible we would be delighted if it stirred
The Brick Awards shortlist has been announced debate and comment. Le Corbusier said that
by a judging panel chaired for the second suc- brick is ‘the friend of man’. Indeed it is, and
cessive year by Bob Allies of Allies & Morrison. we hope we haven’t abused that friendship.
There are 14 awards split into three categories:
Richard Hill is an associate at historic buildings
housing, building and landscape, and technical specialist Richard Griffiths Architects.
and craft. There is also the BDA Building of
Above St Pancras Chambers (Great Northern Hotel), for
the Year Award for the project judged to be the
Manhattan Loft Corporation; the brickwork contractor is
finest overall. Shortlisted entries include Knox Irvine Whitlock, the main contractor Galliford Try, and the
Bhavan’s College Road house in south London architects are RHWL and Richard Griffiths Architects. AKS
Ward is structural engineer for the west wing brickwork.
(left, ph: Richard Haughton) for the best 1-5 Left Richard Griffiths Associates is conservation consultant
unit housing development. The awards will for the Eastern Goods Yard at Kings Cross Central for
developer Argent and its client, the University of the Arts
be presented at the Marriott Grosvenor Square
London. The contractor is BAM, the architect is Stanton
Hotel in London on 3 November. For details Williams and the structural engineer is AKS Ward.
of tables and tickets email [email protected] Far left Work at Eastbury Manor, for the London Borough
of Barking and Dagenham, is being undertaken by contractor
or telephone the BDA 020 7323 7030. E Fuller & Son.

4 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 5
PROJECTS

Teaching by example

Situated in east London, the Tomlinson

Centre by Rivington Street Studio is a £4.8m
professional development resource for The
Learning Trust. Providing training facilities for
staff working in education and children’s serv-
ices in Hackney, the project comprises an 820
square metre new building and 1240 square-
metres of remodelled accommodation set
within an existing primary school.
The brick facade of the new building is
modulated with strong horizontal bands corre-
sponding to the masonry detailing of the
existing Victorian building. The panels ‘shift’
in an abstract way, providing visual interest and
subverting the traditional structural order. An
orange stock brick with a terracotta-coloured
mortar was specified to match the existing red
brickwork and to give the panels a planar-like
quality. Deep reveals house opening windows,
+19,00
19,00
0

+18,00
,
zinc-clad panels and louvred natural ventila-
roof terrace Hamburg Lounge
ge roof terrace

tion units incorporating acoustic baffles.

flat D

+15,35
1 ,

flat C
livingroom
g room
office area

+11,50
,

office area
room entrance
nt an e / wardrobe
Credits Photos: Sarah Blee.
+8,00
,00

rroof
of terrace
at B
flat flat B
kitchen room

+4,50
,

FAS
FAS PA
air gate
g air g
gate
Market of
Hamburg
burg Lounge
products
ground level ±0,00
,

m
exhibition
e on

-3,30
,

drilled pile

Green machine Forming part of Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the energy consumption is less than 50kWh/m2 square metres of photovoltaic panels, provid- kind typically found in northern Germany. But solution – a red paving stone with a raised cir-
Hamburg House by Spengler Wiescholek is an per annum (excluding household power). ing approximately 80 per cent of the scheme’s concerns over the environmental and mone- cular pattern – while walking through the
exemplar energy-efficient office and the first Other sustainable features include ground electrical needs. tary costs of importing a European brick led streets of Shanghai. Originally designed as a
building in China to be certified under the source heating and cooling, triple-glazed The masonry-clad facades are articulated by the team to search for a Chinese equivalent. marking for blind people, the relief has been
German Passivhaus system. Thermal mass windows with solar shading for optimum day- drawer-like cantilevered projections incorpo- This proved unusually difficult as rough, irreg- replicated on the building’s red brick facades,
An exemplar office by Spengler combined with high levels of insulation and lighting, a mechanical ventilation system with rating large areas of north-facing curtain ular bricks matching the German model are endowing them, with an alluring tactile quality.
Wiescholek has become China’s airtightness ensure stable internal conditions heat-recovery, energy saving luminaires with walling. The architect’s original intention was rarely produced in China due to lack of
first Passivhaus scheme. throughout the year. The building’s primary daylight and motion sensors and some 42 to use a traditional red clinker brick of the demand. The team literally stumbled upon the Credits Photos: Spengler Wiescholek.

6 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 7
 Monastic transition

David Richmond & Partners’

skillful remodelling of Douai
Abbey in Berkshire.
Founded in 1615, Douai Abbey is a monas-
tic community situated between Reading
and Newbury, in Berkshire. David
Richmond & Partners’ brief was to provide
new retreat facilities following the closure of
Douai school which had previously been
run by the monastery.
Won in competition, the scheme com-
prises the reconfiguration and refurbish-
ment of the existing accommodation,
together with the addition of a new library,
archive store, refectories, kitchen facilities,
and guest rooms. The library, which is locat-
ed on the north side of the abbey church,
comprises three distinct wings in what
remains of the monastery orchard.
Housed on the ground floor of a new
L-shaped wing to the south of the site, are
the refectories, kitchen, guest chapel and
guest lounge. On the floor above are four
bedrooms for disabled guests and their
helpers. The east elevation is characterised
by a series of curved walls with floor-to-ceil-
ing slot windows providing controlled views
out over the monks’ private garden.
Brick was chosen externally as it matched
the neighbouring school, which has been
converted into residential apartments.
‘Brick allowed us to establish a certain
heaviness to the feel of the abbey’, says the
architect. ‘Breaks in the masonry fabric are
often surprising and unexpected, and this
contrast between heavy and light, and light
and dark, creates moments for thought and
contemplation throughout the building’.

Southwark palimpsest comprising apartments and retail spaces. A masonry arches of the adjacent railway ing yellows, browns, and greys, which help 42
41
40
Tenbury Wells WCs
glass structure reveals previously hidden parts viaduct. Together, the two structures re-estab- soften the transition between the solid oak 39
38
37
c
li

36

of the monument, while a public plaza lish the former canyon-like nature of the cladding and the grey window frames and 35
34
33

provides a new perspective on the Palace’s street. The use of a yellow London stock brick balustrades. Deep brick reveals combined 32
31
30
29

Designed around the medieval remains of historic rose window wall. The Stoney Street gives the building a rich textural finish and with brick-faced lintels provide visual solidity. 28
27
26
The idiosyncratic and sculptural forms of
25

Winchester Palace in Southwark, south elevation is composed of deeply set allows it to blend in with the surrounding 24
23
brick hop drying kilns are a familiar sight in
22

London, Clink Street by Edward Cullinan brick-clad elements, supported on a brick historic warehouses. The chosen brick incor- Below Detail section through brick facade.
21
20
19
the countryside around Tenbury Wells in
18

Architects is a mixed-use development colonnade, the scale of which relates to the porates a range of different colours, includ- Credits Photo: Daniel Clements. 17
16
Worcestershire. Scaled-down versions of
15
14
13
12
these building types are the inspiration
11
10
9
8
behind McMorran and Gatehouse
7
6
5
Architects’ competition-winning public toi-
4
25mm DP
plinth all
round D.2
3
2
1
GL
lets situated in the town centre.
The architect says great care was taken in
selecting a suitable handmade brick that
matched the colour, texture and surface
modulation of the local eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century buildings that were con-
structed from locally-fired clay.
The bricks were randomly mixed (20 per
cent dark red, 40 per cent medium red, and
40 per cent orange) and laid with a 6:1:1
860
mortar, comprising locally supplied sand,
D.2 white cement and lime. All the mortar is laid
DPC DPC

full bed and struck-off flush to the face. The

square pod is constructed in Flemish bond,
1050

while the circular pod is in snapped headers.

3100

8 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 9
 Market forces

A mixed-use development in Soho

by Squire & Partners employs
traditional forms and materials.
Located in the heart of London’s Soho,
Squire & Partners’ Berwick Street develop-
ment comprises 15 dual-aspect apartments
and five two-storey retail units. The develop-
ment is intended to evoke the historic plot
widths of Berwick Street and the surround-
ing area. A series of brick party walls
employed on the main elevation suggest a
similar series of plots, although ordered to
create a new rhythm. The overall appearance
is that of narrow town houses, in keeping
with the character of the conservation area.
A solid brick end wall, punctuated by hori-
zontal slot windows, reinforces the building’s
terraced-street character.
The facades also feature vertical stacks of
traditional Soho glazed bricks. The pattern
of the tiles reflects the colours found in the
Berwick Street market. Photographs taken
of the market stalls were pixilated into
squares of single colours, before being
stretched to the proportion of a tile and
used to enrich the facade. The effect, which
echoes the Victorian glazed tiles found at
London tube stations and public houses,
ties the new building into the history and
culture of Berwick Street. Projecting out of
each glazed brick wall is a timber frame that
contains a window and a timber shutter,
introducing a further Soho game of con-
cealment and exposure.

Credits Photo: Will Pryce.

Urban fanfare

A pair of brick Amsterdam Symphony by de Architekten

Cie comprises a pair of high-rise masonry-
towers signal a
clad towers that form part of a major urban
major urban redevelopment scheme linking the suburb
redevelopment of Buitenveldert with Amsterdam-Zuid. The
scheme in taller residential structure incorporates a
Amsterdam. commercial plinth, while the lower office
block houses commercial spaces, public
areas and an arts centre in an adjoining
structure. Richly coloured and patterned
brick facades unite the two buildings and
respond to the residential and commercial
grain of the surrounding context. Forming
a strict grid laid over the facades, the win-
dows on the residential block are twice as
wide of those on the office block.

Credits Photos: Daria Scagliola

Modular brick office flank wall is conceived as a semi-porous skin repeating six-module course patterns were during construction. Horizontal interlock-
that engages with the local context while used, ensuring the first, seventh and thir- ing between modules occurs through the
maintaining a degree of privacy. Using com- teenth courses remain identical. A set of six cross-stack overlapping of the central bricks
puter modeling, the design team realised individual course drawings were prepared in the modules. In the porous central sec-
Designed by Anagram Architects, the offices that a simple rotating brick module would in the studio and the angle of rotation tion, the brickwork is reinforced using a
for the South Asian Human Rights create the kind of visual and textural com- between them calculated. From these, sets slender concrete beam that runs along the
Documentation Centre occupies a busy plexity it required. In the final design, the of triangular wooden wedges were made cavity created by the missing central bricks.
street corner in New Delhi. Glazed at either concrete slabs were cast at floor-to-floor and distributed to the bricklayers who used
end to maximise daylighting, the external heights of 3180mm. Two sets of continuously them to verify the orientation of the bricks Credits Photos: Asim Waqif.

10 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 11
 Above/left One Vine Street, London W1 (2008) is a mixed-use building,
mostly behind retained facades within the Crown Estate’s £750m Regent
Street Vision project. The 5.5 metre wide window openings to the Vine Street
facade comprise soldier course bricks cast off site into precast concrete lintels
and craned into location (ph: Dennis Gilbert/View).
Below The City Lit, London (2005) is an adult education facility with some
24,000 students a year. The facade is conceived as a cut and folded brickwork
surface that bends and curves to enclose the building in response to the
street geometry. The asymmetric window reveals with deep folded brickwork
appear different from alternate aspects (ph: Dennis Gilbert/View).
Right City Inn, Leeds (2010) with splayed reveals (ph: Dennis Gilbert/View).

PROFILEo

Allies and Morrison’s exploration of the

tension between interior and exterior is
revealed in the facade, says Martin Pearce
I have often wondered why my architecture students follows function’, a response to surrounding con- the first 300mm of the building, has provided fertile only revealed when seen through the movement of elevation is differentiated by the addition of a layer
find the design of elevations so very difficult. text by imitation of regional detail and materials, or ground for Allies & Morrison’s work – the tension shadows on materials in changing reflected light, and of white travertine to each window reveal and so in
Having meticulously analysed the context and brief, a concern with the building as a pure acontextual of competing requirements and inherent contradic- invariably viewed from the oblique angle of the street the most subtle manner acknowledges the hierarchy
devised ingenious plans and cunning sections, often object, building as icon, usually achieved by the use tions is a source of inspiration. Its early work drew looking upwards. This modelling of the facade of the city structure.
the facade seems merely the result of these consid- of one blunt material or, à la mode, a laser cut trac- heavily on the use of layers, veneers of brick, render becomes paramount in the practice’s work as the Recognising the unique, or as Allies & Morrison
erations. In some vain hope of making their build- ery of mesh pattern, somewhere between pop and steel, each with its own syntactic logic, laminat- reveals, cills and heads of openings, the choice of describes it ‘circumstantial’ aspects of the context of
ings ‘interesting’ the elevation often becomes an hypergraphics and William Morris wallpaper. ed together to form complex assemblages with mul- materials and their depth of relief form its architec- a facade, to both interior function and external
exercise in pattern-making, a way of dressing a pre- To contrast these architectural frailties I often tiple readings. Some have observed that the compo- tural palette. For this reason the office is packed full environment makes for an architecture that is often
determined arrangements of volumes. As Berthold direct students to study the vastly more substantial sition of these facades owes much to the abstract with facade study models and exquisite perspective understated yet accented and counterpoised at crit-
Lubetkin wryly observed in his speech on receiving approach developed over the last 25 years by the paintings of Piet Mondrian, of frames with frames, a drawings, the best and perhaps only mechanisms to ical moments. The City Lit building in London
the RIBA Gold Medal in 1982, ‘There are only four office of Bob Allies and Graham Morrison, whose two-dimensional exercise in composition. help understand and test these nuances. takes the form of a cut and folded brick surface that
kinds of artistic activity: fine art, music, poetry and work offers a masterclass in the design of facades But this is to ignore the three-dimensional con- The reveal is of particular importance. As a curves in response to the street geometry. The the-
ornamental pastry cooking, of which architecture is that are meaningful, substantial and poetic. cerns that Allies & Morrison has with the facade. young architect Morrison worked in Finland and atre space within is expressed as a sinuous brick cur-
a minor branch.’ And the rationale of this decora- The challenge of expressing the interior logic of Never seen in pure elevation, the facade of a building closely studied Alvar Aalto’s Academic Bookshop in tain, its curving geometry, reminiscent of Hugo
tion broadly follows either a direct response to the a building while simultaneously responding to the is regarded as an object in its own right, attuned per- Helsinki. A corner building with a repetitive square Häring, carried through into asymmetrical window
interior, in the manner of Louis Sullivan’s ‘form needs of the surrounding context, often all within haps to the low reliefs of Ben Nicholson, its character grid of copper curtain walling, the primary street reveals which give the building a different character
12 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 13
Girton College Library and Archive, Cambridge when approached obliquely from alternate aspects. this steel and glass cloister is permitted to break Fitzwilliam College Gatehouse and Auditorium, Cambridge (2004) Inside the Auditorium, brick is used as a lining, reinforcing the connection
(2005) The library, archive and special collections The original buildings of Fitzwilliam College were designed by Denys with the college garden. The external enclosure consists of a series of brick-
building houses the College’s growing collection
The entrance, always a point of celebration for through the wall only at the main reading room Lasdun in 1958 in dark brown brick with purple columbian pine windows. work piers (three bricks deep but only one brick wide) perpendicular to
of women’s papers and rare books. The front Allies & Morrison, employs changes in materials, window, a synaptic interface of the academic Gatehouse Court and the Auditorium finally give the college a proper and the facade, connected by precast beams at each floor level. This makes a
elevation is detailed as a garden wall structure, cutting away layers of the facade to reveal the inter- enclave and its rural setting. Again this is achieved south-facing main entrance. The language of the new buildings, and their self-supporting deep grid that corresponds with individual student rooms.
its brickwork punctuated only by the main reading materials, reflects that of Lasdun's original and connects directly to those Each room has a zinc-clad bay window and a ventilation shutter of timber
room window with its sun screen louvre, face of inside and out. Often accompanied by a con- in the most delicate manner and within the thick- used by Richard MacCormac in New Court. Beyond the gatehouse, the or glass. The detailing of the Gatehouse does not employ fanciful new uses
a series of fine lines drawn by terracotta ‘fins’ tinuous paved surface that bridges this threshold, ness of the wall, the steel frame precisely articulated brick of the Auditorium expresses its role as a fine textured cloth draped of brick, but refers to weight, dignity and a sense of assemblage. The heavy
inserted at regular intervals, and a cut-out at the over structure. The detailed treatment at the openings expresses this brick piers, lintels and arches at lower levels give way to lighter brick ele-
no canopies are needed to signpost ingress to the from the brick through which, as a pastry cutter, it
south-west end which reveals the monopitch roof where the external brick gives way to flush-set concrete structure. ments above (ph: Peter Cook/View top, Dennis Gilbert/View below).
line behind. The new design is intended to be building as the facade gently delaminates to disclose has incised the void.
sympathetic to the existing library and chapel, not the interior. The academic quad employed at Girton is also
only in terms of its organisation but also in its
form and appearance (phs: Dennis Gilbert/View).
The strategy of a continuous urban edge incised found in the masterplan for Fitzwilliam College,
and cut away at points of importance finds a new also in Cambridge, as Allies & Morrison sensitively
context at Girton College, Cambridge. There is adds to the arrangement of the existing college
something of Arne Jacobsen’s St Catherine’s campus. Here the buildings explain the practice’s
College in Oxford in the blind garden wall linking approach to urban spaces, which follows Adolf Loos
the nineteenth century library and chapel gables to analogy of city square to a domestic room, each ele-
define a new quadrangle behind. The lightness of vation a beautiful carpet hanging on the wall of the
space, and each conveying its own identity, charac-
ter and scale. The intention is not to impose any
unifying formality to the enclosing facades but
rather to establish a clear difference for each build-
ing to give order, legibility and hierarchy to the
space, much as the loose groupings of buildings
that formed the simple farmstead that inspired
Aalto. Building alongside the work of Denys Lasdun
and Richard MacCormac results in a sense of urban
continuity which respects the social history and
collective memory embodied in the fabric of the
college. In doing so Allies & Morrison eschews the
current obsession with iconic buildings for rebrand-
ed corporations in favour of a respect for the
embodied institutional continuity, and the cultural
history of the city.

14 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 15
 The City Inn in Leeds offers further lessons in St Andrew’s, Bromley-by-Bow (2010) London. Allies & Morrison’s first housing block for
Located in east London close to the 2012
facade-making. Here a series of repetitive hotel Olympic Park, the St Andrew’s masterplan
the site makes use of a rich mixture of brick bonds
rooms are faced in a red brick reminiscent of the provides 964 homes around a series of public and colours, each combination seamlessly segued
mill buildings which once stood along this quayside places and courtyard gardens. Very early in the into the next. The building is altogether more solid
project it was established that brick would be the
location. The potentially overwhelming array of the external finish for most of the buildings on the and less veneered than previous work. The deep
grid of rooms is mitigated by the complex composi- basis of cost, architecture, construction and main- brick reveals and recessed windows are reminiscent
tenance. All phases will use brick in different com-
tion of the facade in which discontinuous horizon- of Louis Kahn’s search for permanence and time-
binations, colours and texture; even the 24-storey
tal string lines merge with vertical elements of deep tower will use nine different bricks. Allies & lessness in massive masonry construction, and per-
battered reveals brought to slender arisses. The Morrison’s Block A comprises 194 units and haps the project marks a new avenue of exploration
employs a mix of colours and bonds in conjunc-
basic grid of two rooms above and two below creates tion with 320mm-deep reveals. The brick facades
for the practice.
a giant order that reduces the overall mass of the are built in-situ, and marked along the length by Allies & Morrison’s impressive body of work is the
building, and recalls Bob Allies’ research as a Rome a change of brick combination and bond. Two direct result of a continuous exploration of the prob-
colours are used on each of these sections with
scholar studying the great mannerist devices of one of the colours always continuing into the lems in architecture that really matter. The tension
Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te and Bernini’s Scala next (top ph: Dennis Gilbert/View). between interior and exterior space, and the prob-
Regia in the Vatican. Here the allusion is perhaps lems and opportunities that arise from this relation-
Left – City Inn, Leeds (2010)
more to the flanking buildings of the Campidoglio This new hotel provides guests with a cool, light ship have been central throughout the history of
where Michelangelo refaced and mirrored a and contemporary environment in which to relax, architecture. The work of the practice confronts and
work or entertain. The architectural palette
medieval construction, employing two-storey afforded by the infrastructure of canal bridges
celebrates these issues, and it is based on a profound
columns to give the necessary vertical scale and and a viaduct gives the site a special identity. knowledge of that history. As Lubetkin remarked in
emphasis that from eye level would enclose his new The hotel utilises simple, robust materials: brick, his Gold Medal acceptance speech, much of architec-
circular concrete columns, metal cills and window
elliptical piazza. So the City Inn’s elevation defers to linings, and timber doors. Two-brick-deep splayed tural culture today seems to ‘beget artists who scream
the observer’s standpoint, the angled brick reveals reveals provide insulation, solar shading and to be noticed and remembered for a quarter of an
reduce the glazing panel frames. The building
modelling the facade and developing a diagonal hour’. In contrast, quietly, persistently and carefully,
utilises an in-situ cast concrete frame built using
emphasis that is terminated by an extended tunnel form construction. Brickwork is hand-laid, Allies & Morrison is concerned with the architecture
cadence at the street corner and sliced on the half floor by floor, using a support system off the of the long run.
slab edges. The brick ‘louvres’ were pre-fabricated
bay at the other end to imply continuity. and built into the wall. The hotel rooms are
The City Inn uses the depth of brickwork to artic- contained behind the main band of masonry
ulate the facade, and shows the layering that was which provides deep set reveals as the brickwork
splays in alternating directions. At the top of the
characteristic of the practice’s earlier work to have building the plant level is contained behind a
become more substantial and massive. This is most series of ‘brick louvres’. These were constructed
off site under factory conditions using concrete
apparent in its latest project, a housing scheme for
lintel beams which are then clad in brick slips Martin Pearce is an architect and teacher at Portsmouth school
developer Barratt Homes at Bromley-by-Bow in east (phs: Dennis Gilbert/View). of architecture.

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 Left, below Three gauged niches, housed within a
curved wall, built by the King’s Bricklayer Morris Emmett
at Hampton Court Palace in 1690 (detail photograph:
Will Pryce, from Brick: A World History by James WP
Campbell, Thames & Hudson).
Bottom Gauged niche at a house in Hampshire, built
recently using using purpose-cut rubbing bricks by
Charles Reilly (ph: Charles Reilly).
Right Gerard Lynch setting an ashlared rubbing brick
into position and trimming the excess bead of lime
putty and silver sand mortar from the facework.

PRECEDENT Gauged brickwork defines brickwork of a superior finish, as handsaws, chisels, files and abrasives. The late Victorians smooth-faced facades to emphasise its detailing and The return of the exiled aristocrats and the Royal Court
seen on important elevations in arches, aprons, cornices, developed the now familiar use of profiled ‘moulding boxes’ ornamentation. Precisely laid stonework had traditionally from Europe in 1660 also witnessed the arrival of the latest
Gauged brickwork stringcourses, pilasters, niches and so on. The term may to hold rubbers for cutting to size and shape, using the bow provided this but if bricks were to be used, they could not be architectural fashion and craft practices from the
appear paradoxical as all brickwork can be considered saw with a twisted wire blade. misshapen and laid with thick joints. The solution was to cut Netherlands, seen in Dutch Classicism, whose very accurate
gauged, but it distinguishes a specialist branch of bricklaying, The history of gauged brickwork in England goes back 600 and rub them to fine tolerances, and set them by ‘dip-laying’ gauged brickwork was set with the finest joints. The precision,
requiring post-fired cutting and shaping of bricks, laid to very years. During the early fifteenth century, brick became fash- with thin Greystone, a feebly hydraulic lime putty and silver elegance of its detailing and the emphasis on building with
accurate measurements, raising the craftsman to the status ionable and Flemish brickmasons were in demand for their sand mortar. Joints average 1 to 2mm in width and are brick after the Great Fire of London in 1666 caught the imag-
of a mason. skill at cutting and rubbing bricks to elaborate shapes for allowed to slightly project before being trimmed flush, once ination of influential architects like Hugh May, Roger Pratt
Preparing gauged work, traditionally carried out within architectural enrichments. Gradually the better indigenous stiffened. If required, the dried work might be rubbed and Christopher Wren, who used it to great architectural
the cutting shed, involves rubbing bricks on a flat stone slab, craftsmen learned the art, as seen in the ornate chimneys smooth using a hand-held ‘float’ stone. effect, confident of it being beautifully executed by master
ready to cut to exact dimensions and profile. The ‘rubbing characteristic of the Tudor period. An example of the earliest introduction of gauged brick- bricklayers like Edward Helder and Morris Emmett.
Master bricklayer Gerard Lynch
bricks’ or ‘rubbers’ are square on bed and face, and made Dutch influence was also responsible for the highly refined work into England may be seen in the remains of Houghton Premier rubbers were generally made from self-filtering
recalls the history – and living from low-fired, high-silica bearing topmost clays. The brick skills of what quickly became termed ‘gauged work’, the ulti- House, Ampthill, Bedfordshire (1615). A loggia added possi- downwash alluvial material, meaning unwanted inclusions
tradition – of gauged brickwork, cutter’s techniques inevitably evolved with technological mate development of ‘cut and rubbed’ work, as the bly around 1617-18, and no later than 1621, is built with were minimal – perfect for quality cut-moulded and in-situ
the highest expression of the developments, and used a variety of tools to follow templates, Renaissance spread into England during the seventeenth ashlared-gauged work of orange, fine-textured rubbers, carved work. Rubbers were obtained from wherever such
craftsman’s art. including the double-bladed brick axe, scotch, mason’s small century. Classical architecture demanded broad, plain and neatly laid with 5mm-thick bed joints and finer cross joints. geological outcrops occurred, as seen in Wren’s accounts for
18 • BB AUTUMN 10 BB AUTUMN 10 • 19
Top left A gauged work coat of arms, set out, construct- Winslow Hall, Winslow, Buckinghamshire (1700), showing Wren – handcrafting practices enjoyed a resurgence, with build houses as quickly as possible, utilising de-mobbed, There is much to be positive about, however. After years Gerard Lynch is a craftsman bricklayer who is
ed and in-situ carved by Gerard Lynch. also blessed with the ability to communicate his
Above left Restoration of the external fabric of the that all 99,450 rubbing bricks were obtained from Winslow gauged work re-establishing itself as the highest expression semi-skilled workers alongside time-served craftsmen, sim- of decline, several brickmakers now produce rubbers,
knowledge and enthusiasm to others. Whether it
Board of Graduate Studies, Cambridge, by architects itself, or within seven miles. for producing architectural dressings on principal facades. ply exacerbated this. Changing constructional practices in either oversized for bespoke cutting and rubbing, or cut
David Eusden and brickwork contractor SBC, with is in the context of his masterclasses or through
gauged brickwork brick pilasters, recessed panels, In terms of craftsmanship, eighteenth century gauged A combination of factors led to a great improvement in the early 1970s and a reduction in the length of apprentice- ready for laying. Gauged work, and its repair and restora- lecturing and writing, Gerard is renowned inter-
specials rubbed on site and two large spiral volutes. The work is largely a continuation from the previous century, but the quality of rubbers, and many brickmakers washed and ships, further eroded crafting skills and all but removed tion, is within the syllabus of the new NVQ Level 3 Heritage nationally for his skill and scholarship. The History
project won the Best Craftsmanship award at the 2007 of Gauged Brickwork is a shorthand title for a full
Brick Awards. it undoubtedly suffers from the loss of intellectual input from filtered inclusions out of their clays, and moulded the bricks gauged work from the City & Guilds syllabus. Brickwork apprenticeship scheme. A number of excellent review of historical techniques in bricklaying and
Above right In-situ carved gauged work at Newnham the master bricklayers, subordinated to the new class of pro- ‘oversized’ to suit the new way of cutting within suitably- While head of Trowel Trades at Bedford College of craftsmen have emerged from gauged brickwork master- manufacture from medieval times to the present
College, Cambridge (c1875), designed by Basil
Champneys. fessional architects, and thus is rather tame and style-bound. shaped boxes using a bow-saw with twisted steel wire blade, Higher Education between 1987 and 1992, I pioneered its classes I run from my workshop and at the Weald and day. Interspersed with the narrative are practical
Far right Carved head by Edward Helder, taken from demonstrations either from case studies or exer-
The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed great and to help keep joints to a minimum within the profusion re-introduction into the curriculum and published Gauged Downland Open Air Museum in Sussex. Many of these cises in the masterclasses. It is always a pleasure
the upper part of a house in Enfield built between 1580
and 1700 and now in the Victoria & Albert developments in brickmaking and in craft techniques for of in-situ carved gauged work, so characteristic of this peri- Brickwork: A Technical Handbook in 1990. This inspired a have been successfully employed executing gauged work to engage with someone who has a natural
Museum in London (ph: Will Pryce, from Brick: A World enthusiasm for a subject. This book will appeal to
History by James WP Campbell, Thames & Hudson).
executing gauged brickwork. After a fashion for stucco, fair- od. The beautiful work at Newnham College, Cambridge revival of interest in that almost forgotten branch of brick- on new buildings, or repairing and restoring historic
a wide audience from architectural historians,
faced brickwork returned to favour after the 1840s, particu- (1871), designed by Basil Champneys, is a great example. laying but a move to National Vocational Qualifications brickwork with sympathy for original materials and
architects, surveyors and conservation experts to
larly with the Arts & Crafts Movement of the 1860s, and The huge loss of craftsmen and reduced economic cir- (NVQs), providing basic training that met modern site craftsmanship, helping not only to nurture Britain’s proud craft tutors and students. It will provide a valuable
brickwork standards began to improve after years of cumstances after the first world war saw a decline in the needs, couldn’t facilitate such lofty ideals. Undaunted I heritage, but also that of the bricklayer’s craft – resource for anyone with an interest in bricks and
decline. Through the so-called William and Mary and architectural use of brick, and expensive gauged work was a have continued to execute, write about and teach high-level of which gauged work was, and rightly remains, its brickwork and will persuade others that this is a
rich and varied subject that will repay study.
Queen Anne style revivals – looking back to the time of major casualty. After the second world war the demand to aspects of the art from my own workshop. highest expression. Michael Driver, CEO of the BDA
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TECHNICALo

Stack bonding loads in a two-way action. BS EN 1996- reasonable to assume a resistance stack bonded half-brick thick (102.5 given in Annex E: h/l = 2.5/5.0 = 0.5
1-1:2005 permits the distribution of an approaching that in the parallel to the mm) panel of brickwork in mortar • Required fxk2 = 1.1 N/mm2 from
Dr Ali Arasteh of the BDA
applied moment, MEdi, in a masonry bed joints direction when perp-ends strength class M6 (7% ≤ brick water Table NA.6 of the UK National Annex
examines the design of panel as follows: are properly filled and compacted, or absorption ≤ 12%) develop two-way to BS EN 1996-1-1:2005
stack bonded brickwork. 2
• MEd1 = α WEd l per unit length, l, of thin layer mortar is used and the resistance to lateral loads. • Required design moment of resist-
the wall when the failure plane is paral- orthogonal ratio, μ, becomes unity. • Panel dimensions are height, ance, MRd = 1.1 x 1000 x 102.5 x 10-6 =
2

3.0 6
lel to the bed joints. In this article the conservative h = 2.5 m and length, l = 5m
2 0.642kNm/m
• MEd2 = μα WEd l per unit height, h, of approach is used where the panel’s • Material safety factors: brickwork = 3,
• Required area of reinforcing steel,
the wall when the failure plane is per- flexural resistance is simply based on Steel: 1.15
As = 1.15 x 0.642 x 106 = 40.7mm2/m
pendicular to the bed joints. the flexural strength of masonry in the • Material strengths: brick = fb = 20 217 x 0.85 x 76.3

Where α is the bending moment parallel to bed joint direction. It is very N/mm2, Steel = fy = 250 N/mm2 • Number of reinforced bed joints
coefficient, obtained from Annex E of likely that this strength is insufficient to • Using 50mm wide, 4mm diameter required = 40.7/12.6 = 4
the standard, and μ is the orthogonal allow the panel to withstand moderate ladder type stainless steel bed joint
ratio, ie the ratio of the flexural strength lateral loads, and it becomes necessary reinforcement, effective depth, d, of Provide bed joint reinforcement,
parallel to the bed joints, fxd1, to the flex- to ‘force’ the panel to behave as a two- reinforcement. 4mm longitudinal wire diameter, at
ural strength perpendicular to the bed way spanning plate and develop two- every third course.
The natural beauty of brick is further
joints, fxd2, of the panel material. way resistance. A simple way of achiev- d = 102.5+50 + 2 = 78.25mm The bond with bedding mortar must
enhanced by adopting any one of a 2
The absence of a bond or ties in ing this is by incorporating steel in the be checked although it is very likely
number of bond patterns. The follow- Lever arm of reinforcement, z can
brickwork results in a reduced vertical form of bed joint reinforcement in the that the diagonal bars of the bed joint
ing is a brief description of a few of the be found by trial and error from:
and horizontal load bearing capacity bed joints. reinforcement will provide the neces-
so called common bonds: z = d (1 – 0.5 Asfyd ) ≤ 0.95d
because: The quantity of bed joint reinforce- bdfd sary resistance.
• Stretcher bond – where bricks are laid
on their bed faces and overlap by half • Load distribution over a ‘large’ area ment need only be sufficient to allow or in most cases can be taken as 0.85d
their length in consecutive courses. does not occur. the panel to develop a flexural strength As = π42/4 = 12.6mm2
• English bond – where alternate cours- • Unbounded brickwork has a larger equal to that of the bonded masonry, fyd = 250/1.15 = 217 N/mm2
es have headers and stretchers. slenderness. fxk2, although a greater quantity may b = 1000 mm Typical lap

• Flemish bond – where headers and • Flexural resistance perpendicular to be specified if a greater strength is d = 78.25 mm
stretches alternate in every course. bed joints is very small. required. fk = 0.5 fb0.7 fm0.3 = 0.5 x 20 0.7 6 0.3 = It is recommended in Approved
• Stack bond – where bricks are laid so In stack bonded masonry it is advis- 5.78 N/mm2 Document A that wall ties should be
that the vertical joints line up. able to adopt a conservative approach Example fd = fk/3.0 = 5.78/3.0 = 1.92 N/mm2 austenitic stainless steel. This require-
In reality there is no such thing as and ignore the resistance perpendicu- Calculate the amount of reinforcement ment clearly applies to bed joint
stack bonded brickwork because there lar to the bed joints. Although it may be required to make a simply supported • Check aspect ratio h/l is in the range reinforcement in external walls as well.
are no overlapping bricks in the
arrangement to provide the ‘bond’.
However, any arrangement in which
bricks are lined up vertically can be
referred to as stack bonded brickwork.
The brick may be laid flat, as stretchers
or headers, on edge, and on end as
soldiers to achieve the desired effect.
Depending on the edge restraints
and their aspect ratios, masonry panels
including brickwork behave as
orthotropic plates and resist lateral

Right Stack bonded brickwork on the extension to

Liverpool’s Bluecoat gallery by Biq Architecten Bonded brickwork provides good resistance ‘Untied’ brickwork has higher slenderness Stack bonded brickwork, without bed joint
(photo: Richard Bryant). to vertical and lateral loads. and lower loadbearing capacity. reinforcement, has low capacity to resist loads.

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