Architect Morris Adjmi has been called “The Brick-Master.” His luxury condominium creation at 116 University Place in New York City certainly lends credence to that title. It uses an understated canvas of buff-gray brick from manufacturer Glen-Gery as a background for dramatic, deeply-corbeled, oversized window openings to create depth and shadow like only brick can.

In fact, Adjmi highlighted this particular talent of brick in a 2022 interview with CityReality saying, “One of the things I always try to do is create a building animated by shadow and light. Brick lends to creating that kind of detail that makes a building feel alive and feel contextual that it has substance, it’s not just a thin veil.”

Did you know that the Brick Industry Association (BIA) has calculators to help you determine the cost of brick construction compared to other facade materials? And they aren’t just hyper-generalized, click-bate, data-scraping calculators either. They are specific to your region and openly compare the cost of brick to competitors. Calculators are available for residential cladding, including one that compares square foot costs and one that puts those costs into the context of your mortgage.

BIA’s non-residential calculator goes so far as to apply costs for brick and its competitors on many different types and sizes of commercial and institutional structures, including apartment buildings, college dorms, hospitals and schools!