On April 11th, I visited Vogelensangh, a local and small authentic brick factory in Deest, that has been in the family for over a century. Together with Joppe Kusters, an architectural student from the Academy of Architecture in Arnhem whom researched bricks in a research-by-design class, we learned about the traditional process of making beautiful bricks at this family business.
Brick is deeply rooted in our Dutch culture, it is a truly local product. The clay is literally shovelled from the river’s floodplains and grows back on its own over a relatively short period of time. As a result, brick can be called renewable and is as a building material much more sustainable than we generally think.
Of course, you need coal and or gas to bake the bricks, but as far as I’m concerned, the emissions are in proportion to the long life of the product and the relatively small quantities that are used in a project. The Vogelensangh factory is prepared for hydrogen firing, and they also make bricks with 50% recycled material from donor buildings.
”We are going to show those stones prominently on the facade because there is no such thing as waste!
The whole production process is so pure and beautiful to see. For ‘A home for Taraxacum‘ we’re going to use the ‘misfires’. Those are the stones that are on top of the pile and are actually unusable for normal use and would be thrown away. We are going to show those stones prominently on the facade because there is no such thing as waste!
This motto is more and more accepted by architects. So popular are the ‘misfires’ nowadays that some ‘easy going’ brick manufacturers are specially producing them as a main product. In that case, it is of course no longer a waste material. So we have to carefully check our brick supplier! In that respect, there is nothing wrong with Vogelensangh’s misfits in Deest as we have seen with our own eyes.
