Persuasive Brick Speech # 9 - final draft, blue ribbon winner

Time for Bricks to Change Project # 9

As you look at Raleigh architecture, you see a lot of brick. Think of the Dillon Supply warehouses, huge brick warehouses. The turn-of-the-last-century storefronts on Wilmington, Fayetteville, and Martin Streets – all brick. You may have noticed the parking deck across the street from this building – it’s concrete, but covered in brick. Maybe your house is brick. Think of prestigious neighborhoods in town – the houses? All brick. As an architect, I draw bricks almost every day. But brick is not always what it appears to be. I’m going to convince you to think differently about brick, and I’m going to show you another option.

I. History of bricks
a. According to Britannica, brick has been in use since 4000 BC.
b. It’s a durable, convenient, attractive material. It’s fire-resistant and can support weight.
c. The bricks that are made today are very similar to the bricks made six thousand years ago. A brick is, simply, baked clay.

II. The perception. Brick has:
a. Integrity, stability, timeless style.
b. Weather resistance – durability in storms
c. Adds Value - higher sales value.

III. The deception.
a. The brick in the Dillon Supply warehouses and the storefronts I mentioned had integrity. The integrity of brick ended in the mid 20th century with the mass production of steel.
i. Brick doesn’t support weight anymore – it adds weight. Today, we call brick a “veneer.” It’s one wythe thick, suspended from the building by steel.
ii. The stability of a building has nothing to do with the brick on the outside.
iii. As to timeless style, frankly, brick buildings look old.
b. Weather – one wythe of brick will stop little more weather than vinyl siding, and it is much less water resistant.
i. Remember that brick is dried clay? Brick soaks up water, and mortar joints leak.
ii. Once the water gets in your wall, we have to keep it out of your house and find a way to get it out of your wall.
iii. Modern air conditioning makes the cavity of a brick wall an ideal habitat for mold – moist, warm, and dark.
c. No value – just more money.
i. According to the Brick Association, the labor to build a 10’ x 10’ brick wall costs 1½ times as much as the materials. $500 materials, $750 labor.
ii. In an age of automation and innovation, brick walls are an anachronism: they have to be built by a specialist, one small, mind-numbing piece at a time.

IV. Why you should care – the consumer
a. In a southern town, clay and bricks are as much a part of the culture as barbeque and tobacco. The clay comes easily out of the ground and nuclear power plants provide cheap heat to bake it.
b. Almost every client I’ve had has asked for brick on his building because that’s what he’s used to and that’s what he knows will sell.
c. Until you, the consumer, begin to demand something better, developers will keep building buildings with one layer of leaky, drafty, outdated, expensive brick, and I’ll have to keep drawing it.

V. The alternative
a. Rain screens - the exterior skin is just to look pretty and slow the rain down, not to keep it out. Let it be designed that way.
i. Terra Cotta – beautiful, very modern, low-labor cost, natural and durable material. Conceivably, our local plants could be retooled to make these panels from our same southern clay and nuclear energy.
ii. Keep the weather out with materials that do it best. Rainscreen materials will stop the wind and rain and will keep water from staying inside your walls. Rubber flashing and quality windows will keep the water from coming into your home.
b. Use brick like it wants to be used in our modern age; don’t waste it where something else would do a better job.
i. Arches and curves – Louis Kahn – elegant, expressive, honest.
ii. Detailing – take advantage of the small size and hand-crafted installation with various patterns, colors, and techniques.

VI. You may be surprised to hear that brick is anything worth thinking about, but it certainly is.
a. As Raleigh continues to plan for its future and think about what it wants to be, we need to think about what materials we want to use.
b. Brick shouldn’t be the same old option that it used to be. It’s not used the same way that it was a hundred years ago.
c. If we want to keep putting baked clay on our buildings, the brick needs to change to become something that works and looks better.