Locally sourced brick contributed to the Durham County Library's LEED Silver certification.
© James West/ JWest Productions
by ArchitectureWeek
Brick Awards 2008 The Durham County Regional Public Library in Durham, North Carolina, takes advantage of brick for environmental benefit.
Brick's thermal mass improves the energy efficiency of the LEED Silver-certified facility, helping to keep energy use 35 percent lower than that of comparable conventionally designed buildings. The brick was procured locally, and made from raw materials extracted regionally.
Designed by The Freelon Group, the library received one of the Brick in Architecture Awards for 2008.
The Brick Industry Association's annual program recognizes outstanding creative and technical uses of clay brick. "Best-in-class" honors went to six projects, including the library, which was recognized in the governmental category. Other recipients included religious, educational, commercial, landscape, and healthcare projects.
Green Library
The Durham County Library combines brick and glass to create an energy-efficient structure with extensive daylighting. Heavy masonry walls define a series of layers that organize the one-story, 25,000-square-foot (2,300-square-meter) building and extend it into the landscape. Glazed walls at either end of the open reading room transmit light and connect patrons with the outdoors. A taller glass volume marks the main entrance. Over 75 percent of occupied areas receive daylight, and 90 percent have views to perimeter windows.
Other sustainable features include low-flow plumbing fixtures, drought-resistant landscaping, and recycling of 75 percent of construction waste.
Seamless Transition
When Cyntergy AEC designed a small chapel addition to Christ the King Parish in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the firm was challenged to create a space that flowed seamlessly from the sanctuary of the existing 1926 building while also meeting modern fire-safety separation standards. Extensive use of brick inside and out helped address both needs at the 50-person Mary Queen of Peace Chapel.
Custom brick — along with easily recognizable, historically accurate detailing and design elements — links the addition to the main church, offering warmth and familiarity for the congregation, and forming a durable structure with safe and effective separation of spaces.
The chapel serves as an extension of the sanctuary space, as well as sometimes functioning as a separate, more intimate space for worship. A pinnacle and exterior detailing based on the theme of a crown draw the eye upwards.
Bridging Past and Present
At Amherst College, architects Payette used brick to connect the contemporary Earth Sciences Building and Museum of Natural History to its context. Red brick and gray stone dominate the existing architecture on the Amherst, Massachusetts, campus, which includes many 19th- and early 20th-century buildings.
Brick, terra cotta, stone, and lead-coated copper compose a carefully crafted veneer on the new building, relating materially to existing structures without the heavier massing of load-bearing brick structural elements. Brick and terra cotta are "woven" to form a "fabric" of sorts. The brick matches the color and texture of many campus academic buildings, but with longer Norman brick to accentuate the "stretching" of that fabric.
A large glass opening places the museum's collection on display to passersby. Terra cotta screens span some of the building's glazing, providing shade while maintaining visual connections between the campus and the building's interior.
Full-Scale Demonstration
The new Acme Brick Company Headquarters , designed by Gideon Toal, Inc., stands alongside the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas. The three-story, 75,000-square-foot (7,000-square-meter) office building responds to its setting while demonstrating the design possibilities of brick veneer.
The building showcases a number of products produced by the owner and its partner companies, including brick, glazed tile, structural glass flooring, stone, and carpeting. The structure has a concrete frame, aluminum-and-glass storefront, and a brick-and-stone veneer with concrete masonry backup. Accent walls in offices display Acme's brick veneer product lines.
Recycled concrete forms a base for the main drive through the site. Brick-and-stone break areas provide employees with a formalized opportunity to enjoy the river. The project also includes a system for rainwater collection and storage to reduce impact on water quality.
Repurposed Alley
Cady's Alley connects a block of mixed-use buildings in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Historically an industrial passageway, the alley was converted to combined pedestrian and service use as part of the block's redevelopment, with several retail and residential buildings' entries on the alley.
No original paving materials remained in the area, so the designers, Landscape Architecture Bureau, opted to include both brick and cobblestone — materials found in other alleys in Georgetown. The sides of the alley are paved in brick turned on edge, which creates a deeper section for the road, making it stronger for service truck traffic. A color contrast to the granite carriageway, the brick also forms an inviting patterned "sidewalk" for pedestrians, who are the primary travelers on this route.
The redesign also highlights the passage of water down the alley's centerline to its ends, a drainage pattern characteristic of alleys.
Hospital Connection
At York Hospital in York, Pennsylvania — as at Amherst — brick connects a new building to an existing campus of red-brick buildings. TRO Jung Brannen designed the hospital's new 327,000-square-foot (30,400-square-meter) Patient Care Tower, which consolidates acute-care and cardiovascular services.
A multistory atrium concourse in traditional red brick provides a transition from the campus to the new addition, for which a lighter-colored brick was used. Variety emerges from the details: soldier courses and header courses, cut and molded brick finishes, modular and closure modular sizes, and a variety of colors. Brick also proved affordable based on the project's life-cycle costs.
The 2008 Brick in Architecture Awards were announced on September 2.
The Brick Industry Association (BIA) represents distributors and manufacturers of clay brick and suppliers of related products and services. The association engages in a broad range of technical, research, marketing, government relations, and communications activities.
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