Celebrating Clay Brick Architecture BDA Winners 2025

The 2025 Brick Development Association Brick Awards celebrated outstanding achievements across the UK construction industry, underscoring the importance of craftsmanship, sustainability, and innovation in brickwork. wienerberger, played a key role in many winning projects, showcasing not only the versatility of our products but also the evolving potential of brick in modern architecture.

Here's a list of the winning projects using wienerberger products:

• Housing Development (2-100 units) – Lambton Park | Retro Mayfair Stock & Milano
• Urban Regeneration – Ross Street Mews | Mozart Blend
• Innovation – TIDE Bankside | Smeed Dean London Stock
• Architects’ Choice – Marylebone Place | Smeed Dean London Stock

Hosted at the iconic Royal Lancaster Hotel, this year’s awards ceremony brought together leading architects, contractors, and developers to celebrate the very best in brickwork. With categories spanning Urban Regeneration to Innovation, the event recognised projects that set new benchmarks in design excellence, environmental performance, and community impact.

For wienerberger, the evening was a powerful reminder of brick’s enduring role in shaping sustainable, inspiring places to live and work. The award-winning projects featuring wienerberger products demonstrated how our materials empower architects and builders to combine contemporary design with timeless craftsmanship. Each winning entry reflects the spirit of Building for What’s Next — our commitment to creating a resilient, sustainable, and beautiful built environment that meets the needs of today while anticipating those of tomorrow.

Housing Development (2-100 units): Lambton Park | Metro Mayfair Stock & Milano

Located 9 miles north of Durham City centre, this wonderful development is situated on the estate grounds of Lambton Park, the ancestral seat of the Earl of Durham, with heritage stretching back to the 11th Century.

In 2016 approval was given to re-develop the Park and planning consent granted for the 70 new homes that form this award submission in 2018.

Drawing from the historic buildings on the estate including gatehouses and Bournmoor Church, the design reflects this rich architectural language replicating and re-inventing the polychromatic brickwork patterning and detailing.

From the prestart meeting a close working relationship was formed with the main contractor and brick cutting specialists to assist in developing the numerous bespoke details on the project. Each detail was constructed and tested at full working scale in the site compound, assessing ways to refine and test the aesthetic, such as the mortar joint, the projection at eaves level etc.  

The key brickwork details are listed below:

• Surrounding each entrance door are single and double cant bricks, these were cut and glued up to three times to achieve the precise nature of the detail.
• English garden wall bond was introduced across the development on each façade at a 1in5 ratio, bricks were cut off site to accommodate the header course.
• Introduction of contrasting polychromatic brickwork banding at plinth and first floor level, creating a feature with the header course.
• Layered protruding brickwork at eaves level, assisting with supporting the rainwater guttering. Each one of the three brickwork courses protrudes 30-60mm ultimately forming support for the rainwater goods.
• A small overhanging dry verge detail was introduced with the three course below of protruding brickwork extruded to support the slate.
• Polychromatic brickwork to all boundary walls – the brickwork arrangement was closely linked to the existing dwellings around the park. Extensive drawings were produced, and meetings held to understand how each contrasting arrangement was presented with the varying level change across the site.

Urban Regeneration: Ross Street Mews | Mozart Blend

Ross Street Mews is a £4.8 million housing-led regeneration scheme in West Belfast’s Falls area, one of Northern Ireland’s most deprived wards. Developed by Radius Housing and designed by Studiorogers Architects, it provides 24 energy efficient homes—ranging from one-bedroom apartments to wheelchair-accessible units—accommodating up to 84 residents.

Replacing the derelict Ross Street Flats, the project transforms a site once linked to crime into a safe, welcoming neighbourhood. Inspired by traditional Belfast streets, its mews-style layout prioritises pedestrians, active frontages, and natural surveillance. South-facing gardens maximise daylight and comfort, encouraging social interaction and inclusion.

Durable brickwork grounds the scheme in its local context, lending identity and permanence. Ross Street Mews demonstrates how thoughtful, small-scale design can deliver lasting social, environmental, and economic impact.

Innovation: TIDE Bankside | Smeed Dean London Stock

TIDE Bankside: A New Chapter for London’s Riverfront

TIDE Bankside is redefining what it means to work sustainably in the heart of London. Designed as a Net Zero embodied and operational carbon development, this landmark workspace sets a new benchmark for environmentally conscious design — balancing innovation, craftsmanship, and a deep respect for the city’s heritage.

Just steps from the Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre, and the Thames, TIDE Bankside draws inspiration from the character and texture of its surroundings. Its distinctive façade blends organic, flowing forms with materials drawn from London’s traditional building stock — a perfect meeting point between history and innovation.

Offering 147,500 sq ft of flexible commercial and affordable workspace, TIDE Bankside is crafted to maximise natural light and ventilation, dramatically reducing energy use. Each floor opens onto landscaped terraces that create outdoor working areas, while an expansive shared roof garden enhances biodiversity and provides a space for collaboration and reflection above the city skyline.

Active lifestyles are built into the design. The building features 284 cycle spaces, electric bike charging stations, and high-quality end-of-journey facilities — including showers, lockers, and even a dedicated maintenance area — helping tenants make sustainable commuting part of everyday life.

The building’s façade tells a story shaped by nature. Inspired by the Thames’ riverbanks, it recalls the erosion patterns of coastal cliffs and the sculpted beauty of sea stacks. Bronze-toned columns flow from the rooftop to the ground like water frozen in motion, creating a rhythm that’s both bold and graceful. These columns extend into the public realm to form a shaded colonnade — a welcoming gesture for pedestrians and a natural connection between the building and its neighbourhood.

At the corner of Park and Emerson Streets, a striking sculptural column defines the main entrance, establishing TIDE Bankside as a new landmark for the area. Across the street, an unloved courtyard has been transformed into a lively new public space, further enriching the local environment.

Behind its artistry lies pioneering construction innovation. Working with Thorp Precast, the team developed a world-first water-jet cutting technique for brick, using high-pressure steam to sculpt each piece with extraordinary precision and zero waste. Every cut brick is used in full, reflecting a commitment to circular design. The building’s structure also incorporates ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), reducing embodied carbon by 50% compared to conventional concrete.

Built to last, TIDE Bankside has been designed with a 180-year lifespan and achieves BREEAM Outstanding — one of the highest environmental ratings available. Its adaptable, low-energy framework ensures it can evolve alongside the needs of future generations.

TIDE Bankside is more than just a workspace — it’s a symbol of London’s next chapter. Rooted in its riverside history, shaped by the forces of nature, and driven by cutting-edge sustainable design, it represents a new tide of architecture: one that looks forward without losing sight of where it began.

Architects’ Choice: Marylebone Place | Smeed Dean London Stock 

Includes bricks from Bulmer & Tile Co Ltd/Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC

Marylebone Place is the thoughtful reinvention of a 1930s neo-Georgian office building, formerly known as Marylebone House, located on one of London’s most prominent thoroughfares. Completed in 2023, the redevelopment, led by Fletcher Priest Architects for Beltane Asset Management, successfully integrated a contemporary workplace into a predominantly residential conservation area.

Clay brick played a defining role in both the restoration and expansion of Marylebone Place. Central to the project was the decision to retain and adapt much of the original 1938 office building designed by the prolific architect Stanley Gordon Jeeves. Around 85% of the structure was preserved, aligning with circular economy principles and significantly reducing embodied carbon.

The original façade, composed of traditional red and yellow bricks, was meticulously cleaned and restored. A1960s curtain-wall addition to the rear was reimagined using a precast brick façade system, fabricated by Techcrete at their factory in Brigg, integrating a unique colour gradient composed of seven clay brick tones. These were carefully selected to echo the varied brick palette of the surrounding Marylebone Conservation Area. The Smeed Dean London Stock bricks reflect the classic London stock of the adjacent Georgian terraces, and the Bulmer Red Rubbers match the facing bricks of nearby Bryanston Mansions. The gradient, transitioning from light at the base to darker hues at the top, was achieved through advanced generative design techniques, with each brick type catalogued and located for off-site assembly. The precast panel movement joints were designed with a keyed brick profile to conceal movement joints. This prefabricated approach allowed for an efficient and high-quality on-site assembly, with the clay bricks adding durability, low maintenance and contextual richness.

The newly constructed mews building, a standout feature of the scheme, is constructed in glulam and cross-laminated timber, and clad with a vivid orange glazed brickwork. Manufactured from natural volcanic lava stone and glazed in France using traditional firing techniques, the bold colour and geometry reference the rich industrial heritage of Marylebone’s railway architecture. The distinctive brickwork provides the new building with a unique identity that is visually tied to its surroundings. Distinctive toothed corners pay homage to the 20th century Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz, whose individual mastery with the brick illustrated its versatility and expressiveness. The book-end elevations that front the Georgian terraces of Knox Street and Wyndham Street are faced in traditionally laid brickwork, replicating the colour gradient of the precast brickwork panels and maintaining a crafted, human-scale.

Brick detailing throughout the development is handled with great sensitivity, with arched window openings, layered brick patterns and deep reveals that provide visual depth and shadow This reinforces the architectural language of the Georgian streetscape. The character of the brick façades also appears in the refined and welcoming interior spaces, for a holistic tenant experience.

Marylebone Place exemplifies the role of clay brick in contemporary commercial architecture, adaptable, expressive, and rooted in tradition. It is both a sustainable intervention and a confident addition to its historic urban fabric, made possible by the enduring quality and craft of clay brick.