Awards success for Dudley brick company
Dudley based manufacturer, Ketley Brick has started the year on a high following a haul of major industry awards for one of its flagship building projects: Victoria Gate in Leeds.
Victoria Gate not only scooped a 2017 Royal Institute of British Architects national award but has recently won top prizes for Best Commercial Building and Innovative Use of Brick & Clay Products in the Brick Development Association (BDA) Brick Awards.
Ketley Brick has also claimed a number of international architectural accolades.
Designed by ACME, the landmark Victoria Gate project, which forms part of Hammerson’s Victoria Leeds Estate in the city centre, was developed and inspired by its local historic and architectural context.
The new arcade is a building of impressive scale and complexity, with the decorative brickwork on three of its external elevations constructed using the very latest advances in digital technology and BIM throughout the design and production process.
Ketley Brick supplied approximately 360,000 Staffordshire light and dark ‘Class A’ ‘snap headers,’ bespoke specials and engineering brick slips for the arcade building, which were used across 550 precast reinforced concrete panels to create the striking pleated pattern, with 3D software used to plot and place every individual brick.
Known for their high strength, low water absorption and exceptional frost resistance across all of their exposed faces, Ketley’s ‘Class A’ bricks were chosen for their performance characteristics and dimensional stability as well as their precise form and sharp-edged aesthetic, which was ideally suited to the geometrical design.
Alex Patrick-Smith, managing director of Ketley Brick, said: “We are extremely proud to be associated with such an ambitious and impressive project, which has set a new standard for innovative design and building with brick.”
A well-respected name in the world of bricks, clay pavers, and quarry tiles, Ketley Brick is a family business along with sister company Dreadnought Tiles, which has operated continuously from the one factory in Brierley Hill since 1805.
The company employs 67 people and produces over 14 million bricks and tiles per year and is recognised for the quality of its projects including on-going paving projects at Wembley Way in London and Paradise Circus in Birmingham, as well as overseas projects such as the re-roofing of St Georges Cathedral in Cape Town. Ketley’s Staffordshire Blue bricks have been used widely in Dudley including on the archives building and many restoration projects.
