Contemporary design and historic style with Wienerberger bricks

15 Feb 2017

Throughout 2016, billions of pounds were invested in the capital. A brand new luxury development, One Tower Bridge, including 400 apartments and 80,000 sq. ft of retail, leisure and cultural space, stood out from the crowd.

Wienerberger’s Smeed Dean London Stock brick was chosen for the project, designed to strike a balance between contemporary design and historic style.

The bricks compliment the architectural character of traditional brickwork that has been used throughout the capital, including on landmarks such as the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace for close to two centuries.

The brick is celebrated for its look and finish, unique in its composition of materials; local chalk, brick earth, town ash and clinker preserved from the fire grates of victorian London.

In order to ensure the project and the selected products were of the highest quality, some of the industry’s leading innovators were involved and offered their expertise. The likes of Jon Cornish, Director of Taylor Maxwell, David Ottway of Smead Dean, Rhonda Burr of Wienerberger and Damian Bates, a Senior Project Manager at Berkeley Group were involved.

A visit to the sole remaining brick factory specialising in the production of traditional London yellow stock bricks, Wienerberger’s Smeed Dean Factory in Sittingbourne, was included in the process. The factory uses the original formula and method of manufacturing and has remained unchanged for 200 years.

Jon, David and Rhonda undertook a number of measures to confirm the size and shape uniformity of every brick, ensuring maximum quality was upheld on this large-scale project.

Half a million facing bricks supplied to One Tower Bridge were delivered strictly using the same batch, each fired in the same part of the kiln at the history factory, in order to meet these needs.

This extra effort was an example of the lengths all parties will go to in order to deliver success, Jon commented.

The bricks of the first and top floors have a more contemporary edge in the form of hand set basket-weave brickwork, following a recommendation from brickwork contractors Harlequin Brickwork.

Managing Director of Harlequin Brickwork, Billy Sutcliffe said that the brickwork has been execute to a very high standard on this project, the basket weave detailing and 5mm recessed pointing just enhances it all.

Only the final phase of properties are now available for purchase, the scheme being a resounding success.