Since 2015, Maarten Van Den Driessche and Lieven Nijs (Blaf architects) have been investigating how brick can form the basis for architectural design in ‘Brick Wall City’, a seminar at Ghent University. A thorough understanding of materials and their potential within design often remains very limited in architectural education. “Students design their projects based on a programme, a plan and a section, but often have not drawn a façade until a week before the jury. That final sprint from plan to architecture is often accompanied by a number of automatisms: the façade quickly becomes an expression of a programme or a reproduction of the interior,” explains Lieven Nijs. Van Den Driessche and Nijs want to change this and drew inspiration for their seminar from the pre-modern 19th century, when the composition, ornamentation and detailing of brick façades often led to particularly strong architecture.

Where other courses or modules focus on the more technical aspects of materials, Van Den Driessche and Nijs argue for the causal link between the materiality of architecture and its design or visual language. Over the past six years, they have collected exercises such as ‘vis à vis’, ‘assemblage’ and ‘medium-rise buildings’, which allowed students to observe, explore and question brick architecture. This exploration and questioning takes place by means of a line drawing that includes every detail in the observation and analysis. Redrawing a façade brick by brick, without using a hatching pattern, brings the students closer to the logic of the material itself.