By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2011-07-20 10:21:37 | Word Count: 546
Brick has been and is to this day the most fundamental element of the majority of constructions. Undervalued by some because of its simple and raw nature, new trends in interior design and the adoption of traditional alternative elaboration methods have paved the way for a new golden age of this ceramic material.
The traditional way of manufacturing it is mixing clay and water to obtain a paste to be laid on a mold and that has to dry during at least two days before it can enter the oven.
Today there are three types of preparation processes: soft mud, dry press and extruded. Basically the core process consists on drawing the mixture and preparing it for firing. The mixture can either be laid on a steel mold (soft mud method) or pressed so as to obtain a continuous stream of paste that will be cut depending on the desired measures the paste is then extruded and positioned on the oven (extruded method), which is normally a continuously fired tunnel kiln in which the bricks pass on conveyors for 20 to 48 hours, depending on the size of the brick.
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The first buildings made with brick are from the VI millennium B.C. and were located in the Mesopotamia area. The ziggurat, Babylonian towers that represent the first examples of this architecture, influenced the ancient Egypt and later spread the brick in Greece and the Italian peninsula.
Buildings in brick from the Middle Age have become the representative element of many Italian cities like Bologna "the red one", and brick is found today in many modern constructions of the most important Italian cities like the recent reconstruction of the IULM in Milan.
The resistance to all kinds of adverse weather conditions have make the brick the preferred building material in many areas of the globe, even in areas with very different climates. Water, humidity, ice and the sun affect many structures but brick manages to efficiently isolate the people living inside buildings created with this material from them.
In the construction industry, many professionals find themselves with clients that choose brickwork or brick cladding not only for the actual building of the house but also with esthetics in mind. While some simply maintain the bricks used in the structure as the external façade, others choose to coat the outside walls of the house with solid brick. This is specially the case for buildings that have to be restructured.
The look of the brick has become so popular that in certain buildings there are brick covers on surfaces that were once intended to hide the actual brick of the structure.
The new trends in interior design have also become important for the brick industry and are one of the preferred alternatives for house decoration. Brick pavements and brick clad dominate gardens and interior courtyards, but also wine cellars and living rooms and as a decorative element in fireplaces and ceilings.
Brick is therefore not only a functional material but also a decorative element whose variety of manufacturing processes, treatments and shapes respond to market demands.
Author Resource:-
This article was wriitten by Alba Lorente with support from rivestimento in cotto.
