The humble house brick had its origins from the technology employed by pre-historic people, who made tools out of bone, ivory, antler, hide, stone, wood, grass, metals and animal fibres. As building materials, they used bones such as huge mammoth ribs, strong hide, stone, metals, tree bark, bamboo, and a variety of animal dung.
These ancient people also used the humble house brick and lime plaster as building materials. Mud bricks and clay mortar dated to 9000 BC were found in Jericho in the Middle East. These mudbricks were formed with their hands.
Mudbrick structures, dating to 7,200 BC have been located in the Jordan Valley in the Middle East. These structures were made up of the first bricks with modernish dimension 400 x 150 x 100mm.
The first cities made by modern humans such as the 6,000-year-old urban centre of Uruk in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley cities from 4,600 years ago used bricks as a key building material. In the ancient Sumerian ruins of Uruk, kiln-fired bricks are still in great condition after 6000 years. So they’re pretty robust. See here for more information.
Raw Bricks Sun-drying Before Being Fired
Fired bricks are baked in a kiln which makes them durable. Modern, fired, clay bricks are formed in one of three processes – soft mud, dry press, or extruded. Depending on the country, either the extruded or soft mud method is the most common, since they are the most economical.
Clay and shale are the raw ingredients in the recipe for a fired brick. They are the product of thousands of years of decomposition and erosion of rocks, such as pegmatite and granite, leading to a material that has properties of being highly chemically stable and inert. Within the clays and shales are the materials of aluminosilicate or pure clay, free silica or quartz, and decomposed rock.
One proposed optimal mix is
- Silica (sand) – 50% to 60% by weight
- Alumina (clay) – 20% to 30% by weight
- Lime – 2 to 5% by weight
- Iron oxide – ≤ 7% by weight
- Magnesia – less than 1% by weight
Modern Manufacture of the Humble House Brick
This tends to be carried out in huge industrial complexes with Tunnel Kilns, see photo above. Traditional methods are sometimes still used for certain artisan bricks, but these tend to be less environmentally sound with chimneys belching out smoke. A nimby’s nightmare.
Bricks are a Versatile Building Material
The humble house brick is able to participate in a wide variety of applications, including. Stanley Dock Warehouse, the biggest brick built warehouse in the world.
- Structural walls, exterior and interior walls
- Bearing and non-bearing soundproof partitions
- The fireproofing of structural-steel members in the form of firewalls, party walls, enclosures, and fire towers
- Foundations for stucco
- Chimneys and fireplaces
- Porches and terraces
- Outdoor steps, brick walks and paved floors
- Swimming pools
- Roads and pavements
- Patios
In the United Kingdom, the usual size of a modern brick from 1965 onwards, is 215 mm × 102.5 mm × 65 mm (8+1⁄2 in × 4 in × 2+1⁄2 in), which, with a nominal 10 millimetres (3⁄8 in) mortar joint, forms a unit size of 225 by 112.5 by 75 millimetres (9 in × 4+1⁄2 in × 3 in), for a ratio of 6:3:2.
Further Reading about the Humble House Brick
Phaidon the publisher has a new mini edition of the 2015 photo book “Brick”. Author and editor William Hall pays homage to “the humblest thing imaginable a brick”. You’ll discover 168 eye-catching photos in this small, brick-size book featuring buildings spanning millennia and continents, and highlighting modern architects from Alvar Aalto to Peter Zumthor.