“Not many people know that brick is a building material that has exceptional 'thermal mass' properties.Thermal mass is the ability of a heavy and dense material to store heat and then slowly release it--in short, in summer months your brick home stays cool during the hottest part of the day. During winter, brick walls store your home's heat and radiate it back to you,“ says Ajay Monga, who teaches architecture.
Legendary architect Laurie Baker once said that bricks were like faces to him, each varying slightly in shape and colour. “Such unique and characterful creations should not be covered with plaster,“ Backer says.
It is common knowledge that his designs reflecting exposed brick and terracotta tiles were literally a piece of art in structural form. Remember, genuine clay brick is made from natural materials. “Now, slowly people have started evincing interest in staying in brick houses, as they realize that such buildings have so many plus points. Brick is made from clay and shale-some of the most abun dant, natural material on earth.Brick turns into such a durable material, as the clay and shale unit actually goes through vitrification [to convert or be converted into glass or a glassy substance] process in the kiln, it enables the clay particles to fuse together,“ Sanjay Khanna, director of Kailash Nath Projects, says. There is difference between clay brick and brick made from other material. Concrete units rely on a cement paste to bond the materials together. Moreover, concrete units are inherently greyish, which means that users must inject colour pigments before the setting process and use colour sealant afterwards to have a colour affect.
Clay brick has thousands of colours and shade options that will not fade. However, clay brick is actually significantly stronger than concrete brick as well. Bricks are subject to much more stringent manufacturing processes than in the past. “Now, it is still possible to purchase hand-made brick, it is also possible to buy the type of architectural brick that meets extremely strict product specifications,“ Alimuddin Rafi Ahmad, MD of ILD Group, says.
Experts say that genuine clay bricks provide superior shelter in three major categories. Be it a vaulted roof, an exposed brick wall, or the entire structure being exposed bricks, the roof incorporating filler slabs and terracotta plates, and the walls framed as a jaali with the clever placement of bricks, the final evolution of the brick building is nothing short of being spectacular.
In nutshell, a structure can be made totally of bricks, be it in the walls in exposed form effusing an earthy flavour in interiors and exteriors, as clay-tiled floors, as a brick dome or a clay-tiled vaulted roof, as terracotta murals infusing art, or as exotic vents for air and copious sun shine where the spectacular brick jaalis have been created by a clever placement of bricks.
Bricks can also be used for erecting columns and beams without the use of steel, though this is dependent on the level of load to be borne. It is absolutely safe to have brick vaults as well as brick columns without steel inserts as bricks have load bearing capacity, an architect said.
A point to be noted here is, bricks tend to take in water--especially in the roof--but this can be circumvented if the brick dome is layered with glazed terracotta tiles to prevent water seepage. Apart from their stunning aesthetics, bricks also pack in qualities of insulation where the ambient temperature during the day is much cooler while the night temperature is comfortingly warm.
Clay brick walls also score the maximum ratings when it comes to fire resistance.
Concrete blocks, steel, and ex posed concrete have replaced this s earthy material. While concrete and steel are required for heavier loads in a structure, the common scene is their use even in a design that may not require multiple levels or heavy load bearing.