Choosing a full brick facade or adding brick features to your home can provide warmth and another layer of texture and intricacy. Because of their history, they can create a classic and established style. In this article we highlight 3 different ways you can use brick in your next building project to deliver the style you are striving to achieve.
Using bricks in a traditional home
Traditional homes are great for featuring brick in your façade as they celebrate popular and current home trends. Brick is usually included as a feature or used as the main construction material. It is often used as the first basic piece, then enhanced through choosing complementary materials. For example, choosing a darker brick to start with and adding lighter mouldings, cladding or timber features can enhance the appearance of your façade. This is a great way to ensure that your overall aesthetic isn’t too gloomy, whilst still featuring a darker coloured brick.
There are multiple brick colour selections that you could make for your home, that can change the style dramatically. The most popular styles include red and brown coloured brick, and the more neutral choices such as white, grey and black. Each selection brings a different ambience to traditionally designed homes. A white brick home can convey more of a Hamptons or Country style, and can make a great feature for columns, feature walls and fireplaces for your internal style. Darker bricks give traditional homes more of a fresh and modern feel, as they are less predominantly featured in facades. Lastly, a red or brown brick home, can give your traditional home a classic and timeless look.
Using bricks in a contemporary home
Contemporary homes are like traditional homes in the way that they evolve to fit a modern context. This style of home is all about reflecting the design possibilities of today. It borrows many features from what would usually be considered a modern home, like sleek lines and minimalism.
Bricks are extremely versatile and can be used in conjunction with any home style, even though they are not often seen as compatible with contemporary homes. Often, clients who are going for this approach, shy away from brick as they fear it may remove the sleek and modern aspects of the design. If you are nervous about using brick, we would recommend featuring small aspects in façade, such as chimneys, pillars, or a fireplace mantle. Realistically, brick can be featured in any style of home, your considerations need to be focussed on the quantity, colour selections and patterns in which they are laid.
Using bricks in an ultra-modern home
Ultra-modern homes are ever-changing and constantly evolving to showcase modern styles of the time period. They encapsulate the latest, and most innovative design styles to create a space that is truly ahead of its time. Even though the first instance of using bricks dates back to around 3300 BC, bricks are still extremely versatile and can be used in different ways to suit a modern context.
For ultra-modern homes, brick is predominantly used as a feature, combining intricate elements and detail. Selecting bricks for your home can entail more choices than you may expect. Today, bricks are created in many different sizes, colours, textures, and finishes. For an ultra-modern home, your design should move past ‘traditional’ and ‘established’ and transition towards innovative and progressive design solutions. For example, changing the patterns of your chosen brick to an unconventional form, can provide these modern elements. ‘Stack bond’ is an example of an alternative brick pattern, in which the bricks are stacked directly on top of each other, instead of being scattered and overlapped. For an ultramodern style, the bricks can also be finished with a glaze that makes them completely flat and provides a slight iridescence and shine.
Make sure to click the link below and check out our Pinterest Board, titled, ‘Façade Materials’ and browse the ‘Brick’ Section.
For more ideas regarding what type of brick would be best for your home design style, give us a call today!
