The Filigree House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, won the Craftsmanship Brick in Architecture Award for 2021. Credit: The Brick Industry Association.

Since 1989, the Brick Industry Association has sponsored the Brick in Architecture Awards to recognize exceptional uses of clay brick in architecture. The 49 global winners for the 2021 awards include entries spanning the United States, Australia, Canada, and Mexico.

As the temperatures cool off some during the late summer and early fall, I look forward to visiting outside places. The First Responders Park in Westerville, Ohio, is at the top of my to-visit list, and not just because one of my favorite soft-serve ice cream companies opened a location nearby—the park won first place in the Brick in Architecture Awards paving and landscaping category last year!

Since 1989, the Brick Industry Association has sponsored the Brick in Architecture Awards to recognize exceptional uses of clay brick in architecture. Architectural and design firms can enter their designs in eight different categories:

  • Commercial
  • Education, K–12
  • Higher education (colleges, universities)
  • Historic renovation
  • International (project located outside of the US, Canada,
    or US territory)
  • Residential, single family
  • Residential, multifamily
  • Paving and landscaping

An additional “Craftsmanship” award is given to one of the entries to recognize an individual mason or a team of masons “who skillfully install brick in an artful/unique way.” This year, both the Craftsmanship award and the silver award in the residential single-family category went to the Filigree House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (architect: Moto Designshop; brick manufacturer: General Shale; brick distributor: Diener Brick Company; mason contractor: Brandon Reiss Masonry).

The Brick Industry Association chose 49 winning projects out of 138 entries, with the Best in Class gold, silver, and bronze winners including projects in the US, Australia, Canada, and Mexico.

“These awards demonstrate clay brick’s infinite design versatility derived from a myriad of available colors that never fade, textures, and installation options,” Ray Leonhard, president and CEO of the Brick Industry Association, says in a press release.

You can find a photo gallery of the winning projects on the Brick Industry Association website www.gobrick.com/pics-of-brick/all-categories/2021-award-winners---commercial. All the winning designs can be seen in the video posted to the Ceramic Tech Today website, where this article was originally published on March 9, 2022. https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/ceramic-video/video-2021-brick-in-architecture-awards-demonstrate-bricks-infinite-design-versatility.

the author Lisa McDonald is associate managing editor and science writer at The American Ceramic Society. Prior to this position, McDonald worked at the American Institute of Physics: FYI and the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. She has a master’s degree in science communication and specializes in communicating science to nonspecialist audiences.

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Topics: Ceramic Artists
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