Bricks Decoded: The Versatility of Ceramic Facades & Screens.

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As an architectural material, Terracotta has come a long way from the humble roof tiles that dominated Western urban development in that late 19th and early 20th century. The options are vast when it comes to this clay-based ceramic, holding major appeal for contemporary projects thanks to its durability, versatility, and sustainable merit.

Case in point, our friends over at Brickworks have released the Terraçade system, a collection of enduring ceramic materials suitable for both buildings up to 30-stories high and small-scale residential projects. The cladding comes in a wide range of colours and four unique finishes; glazed, sandblasted, smooth, and watermark with a timber grain finish.

Terraçade system from Brickworks.

Terraçade appeals to the creative and the practical, a chameleon in terms of its potential application to a vast array of architectural styles. The natural properties of terracotta ensure low maintenance and durability, and the entire collection is prefinished and colourfast with a 100-year product warranty (just casually).

In terms of sustainability, which we would all do well to consider when constructing anything new these days, the Terraçade tile is made from natural and recycled materials. The majority of the system is not only reusable, but can also be recycled. Terraçade is also an open rain-screen system, so it assists with energy reduction by enabling air to flow between the substrate wall and cladding system.

Today we take a closer look at diverse projects which utilize Terraçade and other types of ceramic claddings, from the Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre in China to the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences Building at the University of Sydney. So settle in, because you’re about to gain a whole new appreciation for the versatility of ceramic facades and screens.

Photography by Marc Goodwin, Yong Zhang & Martin Lukasczyk.

Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre in Fuzhou, China by PES-Architects // In 2014, Helsinki and Shanghai-based studio PES-Architects won a government competition to build the Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre in the capital of Fujian Province, China, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the world. Facing onto the Minjiang River, the 150,000sqm site takes inspiration from a Jasmine flower, with five buildings conceived as if petals fanning out from the centre.

Along with steel, concrete and bamboo, PES worked with glazed terracotta tiles and louvres to clad the roof and façades, their custom white colour a further reference to the jasmine flower. The lens-shaped Terraçade louvres have cascading gaps between them, giving the building a delicate, translucent quality that evokes the appearance of ‘petals’ unfurling. The distance and angle of the louvres are optimised to shade the vast glass façades, while also casting intriguing shadows across the white-ceramic and bamboo interior.

In designing the interior of the opera house and concert hall, PES-Architects worked with Taiwanese ceramic artist Samuel Hsuan-yu Shih. The interior wall of the opera house is covered in a matte China White skin with 1.5 million pieces of ceramic jasmine ‘petals’ and decorated with 13 various shapes.

Notre Dame College in Shepparton, Victoria by Baldasso Cortese // Melbourne and Christchurch-based architects Baldasso Cortese utilized a red brick and Terraçade façade in ensuring Notre Dame College stood in harmony with its neighbours, a mixture of heritage, educational and commercial buildings. A long and low two-storey profile complements neighbouring structures, with the subtle funnel shape inspired by eel traps once used by local Indigenous people.

Used to clad the upper storey, white Terracade XP Smooth tiles fit the brief for a low maintenance, contemporary yet robust material. Brickworks engineered a custom tile double the length of the standard XP Smooth tile, with a custom Brilliant White glaze. The light colour of the tiles assisted in softening the visual impact of the height of the building.

University of Sydney LEES1 Building by HDR and Richard Crookes Construction // It’s only natural that the Life, Earth, and Environmental Sciences Building (LEES1) at USyd was inspired by Sydney’s unique beauty, with the glistening harbour and Pacific Ocean to the east and the rugged Blue Mountains landscape to the west. The building is clad with prefabricated Terraçade and clear glass panels, weaving together references to both water and sandstone.

Flanked by a row of heritage fig trees and set on a prominent position on City Road, HDR designed a wedge-shaped building with a stepped façade in response to a tapering site, containing 10,000sqm of research and teaching space across eight storeys. A timeless material palette comprises off-form concrete, clear glazing and Terraçade TN Smooth 1200 tiles in Whitehaven, a ceramic aesthetic with soft, creamy colour and sandstone-like texture.

“The trees and the scale of the building have a relationship to the low green canopy in the Blue Mountains with the sandstone escarpment rising above,” says Graeme Spencer, Associate Director of Education, Science and Technology at HDR.

LEES1 is the first project to be made with prefabricated Terraçade 15-tile panels, each weighing up to 600 kilograms due to the stiffeners and bracing to support the loads. The tiles are laid horizontally with a recess between each vertical panel, creating a striated effect across the building that evokes the texture of the sandstone escarpment.

Photography by Miguel de Guzmán.

Cultural Center La Gota: Tobacco Museum by Losada García in Cáceres, Spain // Mimicking the brick materiality and atmospheric light qualities in traditional Caceres tobacco-drying houses, the Cultural Center La Gota building is draped in a perforated ceramic fabric. Screw-fixed to each slab and anchored to the ground, the façade system acts as the second skin to an otherwise glass box, dispersing the light internally and dematerialising the building’s presence on the street. Although it looks fairly homogenous, the brick pattern varies along the facade, closing off and opening up the internal spaces and creating a non-uniform face.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photography courtesy of Sauerbruch Hutton.

Museum Brandhorst in Munich by Sauerbruch Hutton Architects // Thousands of ceramic rods create an illusionary effect across the exterior surfaces of Munich’s Brandhorst Museum. After WWll damage required parts of the museum to be rebuilt, Sauerbruch Hutton architects added an angular, modern structure to the original neo-classical building. Three exhibition levels are connected by an imposing oak-clad staircase, each floor flooded with natural light thanks to an offset floor plan and large skylights.

The museum’s polychromatic façade resembles a large, abstract painting in itself, an external reflection of the lively art housed within. The exterior is constructed of several layers; in front of the substructure and thermal installation is horizontally folded bi-coloured sheet metal with fine perforations that absorb traffic noises from the bordering busy thoroughfares. In front of this, 36,000 separate ceramic rods are attached vertically, glazed in 23 different colours that range in tone from light to medium to dark. The horizontal and vertical layering and contrasting, merging colour makes the building appear to oscillate.

Photography by Alejandro Arango, Andrés Valbuena & Fundación Santa fe.

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