On May 3 in Munich, Thomas Jocher from Fink + Jocher Architekten and Thomas Fehlhaber from Lebensraum Ziegel held a discussion as part of the Baumeister nach 8 event series.
Brick is one of the oldest building materials in the world and has recently experienced something of a renaissance. For architects, a solid brick wall is an interesting alternative to a thermal insulation composite system or multi-layered constructions. This is due to its properties: it is considered an ecological and sustainable material that is strong and yet breathes. And although the brick is so old, it has received a number of innovative boosts in recent years – just think of Gramazio Kohler’s experiments at ETH Zurich, which use robots to build complex ornamental brick façades.
We discussed this as part of our Baumeister nach 8 event series on May 3 in Munich. The venue was the offices of Fink + Jocher Architekten. Thomas Jocher, Partner at Fink + Jocher, spoke there with Thomas Fehlhaber, Managing Director at Unipor and civil engineer with a doctorate, about the future of brick, its structural possibilities and its cultural significance. The event was moderated by Alexander Russ, editor at Baumeister.
Thomas Fehlhaber, who also represented the “Lebensraum Ziegel” platform, which is backed by the Poroton, Unipor, Thermopor and Mein Ziegelhaus product groups, represented the industry side. Thomas Jocher, an experienced brick planner, represented the architects’ side. Right at the beginning, building with bricks was vividly explained by Thomas Jocher using a six-storey residential building from the office.
And while the material is often associated with two- to four-storey detached houses, the project made it clear that higher projects with up to ten storeys are also possible with brick. However, according to Thomas Jocher, this is only possible if the given logic of the material is taken into account in the design, while Thomas Fehlhaber suggested changing the legal requirements to make it easier to plan higher storeys with brick.
The future of brick
The future of brick was also discussed, with the audience taking a lively interest. For example, there were very different opinions on the “2226” project in Lustenau by Baumschlager Eberle, which consists of brick walls almost 80 centimetres thick and largely dispenses with insulation, heating and building services. While some members of the audience were enthusiastic about the project, others criticized it as an architectural experiment that could not be translated into reality.
There were also very specific suggestions for the future of brick: Thomas Jocher reminded the audience that the brick would be a kind of “decathlete” that could score points not only in the wall area, and appealed to the industry to make greater use of these capabilities. Christof Wallner, Partner at Fink + Jocher, then took the floor from the audience and called for bricks to become an “eleven-combatant”, especially in the area of shaped bricks, in order to be able to design façades more individually or to integrate building services components such as ventilation systems.
There was agreement on the cultural significance of the material – be it through rendered façades in Munich or clinker brick façades in Hamburg. In addition to its structural properties, brick also plays an identity-forming role, as a traditional material that also points to the future.
