Working with low-carbon brick alternatives for repairs to imperial-sized bricks in historic buildings

This article presents the winning entry to the Institution's Research into Practice case study competition 2023. Katie Hood, a SPAB Lethaby Scholar in 2022, describes a project carried out by Heriot-Watt University and Kenoteq, on behalf of Narro Associates and the Glasgow School of Art, to investigate the potential to use a novel, low-carbon brick – the K-BRIQ® – for the repair and rebuilding of mass masonry walls at the school's Mackintosh Building following a significant fire. The article sets out the challenges of sourcing suitable imperial-sized bricks for the rebuilding and repair work, and describes the investigations performed to assess the suitability of a proposed K-BRIQ formulation using sample crushed debris feedstock from the Mackintosh site.