Zuzanna Skurka, designer, craftsman, researcher and material translator, has transformed bricks from an old demolished barn – actually pre-war German bricks, found on a current territory of Poland – into a new material for architecture. An investigation, made in collaboration with Natural Material Studio, into the role of bricks, not only architecturally but also socially, that led to an interesting result: a new material that resembles something between ceramics and fabric. Bricks have been combined with biopolymers, natural softener and water to form Brick Textiles of different shapes and functions. “Instead of natural pigments or fibers that Natural Material Studio is usually working with we wanted to use bricks”, Zuzanna explains. “Brick is an object I started researching during my studies at the Royal Danish Academy, and was looking at new, less extractive, ways of brick production and also at possibilities of making new objects and materials from old bricks”. The result of this brick research was exhibited at the Dutch Design Week (the first phase was staged at Milan Design Week 2023, for the Alcova exhibition).
The designer and the Danish studio presented thin, flexible sheets of material in a bright red color, with strong reference to brick. The surface is also circular: the biopolymer starts to melt at around 70 degrees and can therefore be recycled and reused almost indefinitely. “In the process of making the Brick Textiles, we have been treating those finely ground bricks like pigment, sometimes leaving bigger pieces to communicate what is the material made with, even if it is very different from a brick: it can be rubber-like, silk-like, or with a very rough texture and the finish of the material is a fully handmade process”.
These objects, almost a provocation, have the form of architectural elements but do not totally fulfil their original functions – the wall for example does not serve to protect or divide – but work as tools to reimagine architecture. In shaping these innovative products, the designer brings together elements that are by nature opposites. “I love this idea of making a brick blanket: when you say these words together it is hard to imagine how such an object can look like. Can you make a blanket from bricks?”, she says. Skurka would like to continue researching bricks for a while longer but she is also attracted by different projects. “My new interest is shelters – this specific type of architecture that acknowledges a state of emergency”, she says. “And the materials the shelter is made out reflect that. So I am researching what a shelter against climate catastrophe looks like”.
