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Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

cnn.com

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Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#21

Post by rumanator »

kube-system wrote: post #6

We already have several reinventions of the brick which are stronger and more eco-friendly -- we call them concrete blocks. I thought it was pretty silly to compare this product to bricks on it's cost/strength/waste. People aren't choosing brick for these factors anyway. People choose brick mainly for the aesthetic.

> We already have several reinventions of the brick which are stronger and more eco-friendly -- we call them concrete blocks.

This.

Not only that, but in concrete alone there are a myriad of concrete types and tech improvements throughout the years.

The whole article is founded in a false premise. It's as if naive salespeople were expecting no one in the construction industty would have any idea of what a brick is and how construction technology has been changing throughout the years.

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#22

Post by kube-system »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #20
aidenn0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I lost it when TFA referred to bricks as "The building blocks of modern suburban homes." I'm not sure what suburbs the author is familiar with where new homes are made of structural brick.

The article is fairly UK-centric, and in the UK, most suburban homes are made of brick.

"Brick" homes are common in the US too, but most made after WWII are simply veneers over a structure of a different material. Are you sure that's not the case there? I did an image search for "uk home construction", and all of the instances on the first page also appear to be veneers.

Example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/615000-new-...

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#23

Post by eyjafjallajokul »

rapnie wrote: post #18
saeranv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we could use trees as a building material!

Cross-laminated timber is quite promising in that regard. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cross+laminated

Pretty sure they are being sarcastic and referring to wooden construction (majority of US homes).

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#26

Post by dylan604 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #16
g8oz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says 1.5 trillion bricks are produced annually...wonder where they are getting used. In North America their use seems to have been relegated to facades.

In central/southern Ontario, nearly all homes have brick facades (stick-built frames), even cheap subdivision homes and new construction. I'd put it at something like 80%-90%. I have no idea why brick is so popular here, but that's a lot of bricks.

Brick exteriors do not burn. Brick exteriors are much more rugged to the elements. Brick exteriors do not require maintenance of painting, etc. Brick exterior houses are cheaper to insure. There's lots of reasons for brick exterior than just aesthetics.

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#28

Post by hosh »

stonogo wrote: post #4

This is in CNN Style for a reason. It's a neat research project, great for prestige projects like Hyde Park. It just cannot compete with clay from a cost perspective.

Open Source Ecology has open-source designs for a compressed earth block machine that can generate these things from the dirt on-site. These machines have been built and had been in use for some time now. They did require some knowledge that are not widely disseminated (use of water to motar them together, and other construction techniques you would not use with conventional bricks). With a CEB machine onsite, it makes construction of this type of material decentralized, without having to rely on a fragile, global supply chain.

It also means getting more CEBs to affect repairs can be sourced locally, and does not require a functioning global supply chain. (Assuming you can keep the CEB machine in good repair; but that is why it is open-sourced).

I think there are some heat retaining properties that CEB have that conventional bricks don't have. Combined with a hollow-core, or insulated core wall construction, the end results are housing that are more efficient with heating and cooling.

When combined with permaculture design, the excavation can be done to build swales for efficient rain water harvesting.

So yeah, if we only look at the cost from just the perspective of sourcing conventional bricks, maybe it won't compete. From the perspective of whole system design and resilient systems, I think CEB offers something better.

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#29

Post by frosted-flakes »

dylan604 wrote: post #26
frosted-flakes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In central/southern Ontario, nearly all homes have brick facades (stick-built frames), even cheap subdivision homes and new construction. I'd put it at something like 80%-90%. I have no idea why brick is so popular here, but that's a lot of bricks.

Brick exteriors do not burn. Brick exteriors are much more rugged to the elements. Brick exteriors do not require maintenance of painting, etc. Brick exterior houses are cheaper to insure. There's lots of reasons for brick exterior than just aesthetics.

I agree with everything you said (particularly the no maintenance part), but I think there must be another explanation as to why brick facades are so prevalent on southern Ontario houses. Other areas with similar climates and population levels (say, Minnesota) have much fewer brick homes.

It probably comes down to tradition. In the old parts of any city, all of the 100 year-old houses have brick exteriors, as well as most of the houses built since then.

Re: Sustainable engineers Kenoteq are reinventing the brick

#30

Post by tonyarkles »

MrLeap wrote: post #24

This article has inspired me to make a brick. The regular kind. I have tons of clay and a forge that can melt steel, honestly it just never occured to me so now I have to try!

Now you’ve got me googling “refining clay from soil”. Our city is built on the most terrible clay gumbo imaginable, and I’ve got a huge pile of the stuff to get rid of somehow...
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