The “Click Brick” – BRG ETH Zurich, South Africa

  • Location: Zurich, Cape Town
  • Date: 2021

Self supporting, structural, interlocking, hand-pressed roof tiles

Combined with structurally-informed fabrication techniques, this innovative building system demonstrates the potential of providing safer and more dignified housing alternatives in an affordable and sustainable manner.

The self-supporting ClickBrick system can be used to construct barrel vaulted roofs with a minimal amount of formwork and without requiring expert labour. More importantly, the geometry of the roof and the interlocking system of the bricks eliminate the use of steel reinforcement, traditional formwork and scaffolding.

The weight of each brick has also been optimised to be handled easily by both male and female workers. The proposed structural system as a viable alternative construction method for housing demonstrates how structural geometry can significantly reduce resource consumption and enable the use of local and more sustainable yet structurally adequate building material.

This project is collaboration between the Block Research Group (BRG) of ETH Zurich and nonCrete.

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