London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

We've been using the same bricks for over 5,000 years. This engineer says it's time for a change.

We've been using the same bricks for over 5,000 years. This engineer says it's time for a change.

The production of conventional fired clay bricks is loaded with environmental problems. Civil engineer Gabriela Medero says she has a solution.

Although we're surrounded by millions of them every day, most of us don't think about bricks too often. For thousands of years, the humble clay-fired brick hasn't changed. The building blocks of modern suburban homes would be familiar to the city planners of ancient Babylon, the bricklayers of the Great Wall of China, or the builders of Moscow's Saint Basil's Cathedral.

But the brick as we know it causes significant environmental problems, by using up raw, finite materials and creating carbon emissions. That's why Gabriela Medero, a professor of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University, decided to reinvent it.

Originally from Brazil, Medero says she was drawn to civil engineering because it gave her passion for maths and physics a practical outlet. As she became aware of the construction industry's sustainability issues, she started looking for solutions. With her university's support, Medero joined forces with fellow engineer Sam Chapman and set up Kenoteq in 2009.

The company's signature product is the K-Briq. Made from more than 90% construction waste, Medero says the K-Briq -- which does not need to be fired in a kiln -- produces less than a tenth of the carbon emissions of conventional bricks. With the company testing new machinery to start scaling up production, Medero hopes her bricks will help to build a more sustainable world.

The problem with bricks


Although they're made from natural materials, there are problems with bricks at every step of their production.

Bricks are made from clay -- a type of soil found all over the world. Clay mining strips the land's fertile topsoil, inhibiting plant growth.

In conventional brick production, the clay is shaped and baked in kilns at temperatures up to 1,250°C (2,280°F). The majority of brick kilns are heated by fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change.

A clay quarry in Andalusia, Spain


Once made, bricks must be transported to construction sites, generating more carbon emissions.

Globally, 1,500 billion bricks are produced, every year. Laid end-to-end, they would stretch to the moon and back 390 times.

The environmental footprint of different bricks reflects multiple factors including the type of kiln, fuel, and transportation. But with so many produced, their impact adds up, says Medero.


Enter the K-Briq. To make it, construction and demolition waste including bricks, gravel, sand and plasterboard is crushed and mixed with water and a binder.

The bricks are then pressed in customized molds. Tinted with recycled pigments, they can be made in any color.

Earlier this year, Kenoteq won its first commission -- to supply bricks for the Serpentine Pavilion 2020 in London's Hyde Park (although the project has been postponed until summer 2021 due to the current pandemic). Designed by architectural studio Counterspace, the building will incorporate K-Briqs in grey, black and 12 shades of pink. The Pavilion's lead architect, Sumayya Vally, says that as a recycled product, the K-Briq appealed to her. It "embodies" the past through its use of old materials, she says, adding that because the bricks can be customized, they allow "the designer to be a part of the construction process of the material," creating unique opportunities in architecture.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2020/2021 was designed by South Africa-based architect studio, Counterspace.


Why can't old bricks be re-used?


In the UK, around 2.5 billion new bricks are used in construction every year -- and about the same number of old bricks are demolished. A seemingly simple solution to the brick production problem would be to re-use old bricks.

But it's not that straightforward. According to Bob Geldermans, a climate design and sustainability researcher at Delft University of Technology in the
Netherlands, reclaiming bricks is an expensive and "labor-intensive process."

According to the UK's Brick Development Association, old brick structures need to be carefully dismantled and the bricks cleaned of mortar with hammers and chisels. Reclaimed bricks are used to help renovate historic buildings or for other specialized projects but for mass construction, the process is too costly.

A brick kiln in West Sussex, in the south of England.


An additional barrier is that there's no standardized way to check the strength, safety or durability of reclaimed bricks.

Medero says that K-Briqs could solve both these problems.

According to Medero, the K-Briq will be comparably priced to conventional bricks. Additionally, as a new product, the K-Briq has been subjected to rigorous assessment at the materials testing lab at Heriot-Watt University, and is in the process of being certified by regulators. Medero claims that K-Briqs are stronger and more durable than fired clay bricks, and provide better insulation, too.

Gabriela Medero and Sam Chapman, co-founders of Kenoteq, say they have created a sustainable alternative to traditional fired clay bricks.


Scaling up


Kenoteq currently operates one workshop in Edinburgh, which can produce three million K-Briqs a year. Medero is looking at scaling up -- but it's hard to create a revolution in construction.

Geldermans says that the industry is notoriously slow to change -- adding that legislation often lags far behind innovation, so construction companies are not incentivized to adopt sustainable practices and materials.

Stephen Boyle is the program manager for construction at non-profit Zero Waste Scotland which, along with organizations including Scottish Enterprise and the Royal Academy of Engineering, has provided Kenoteq with funding. He attributes the industry's conservatism to a "chicken and egg" situation. Innovative startups need large contracts to allow them to scale, he says, but struggle to become competitive without a large operation already in place.

Gabriela Medero, co-founder of Kenoteq, came up with the idea for the K-Briq over a decade ago.


But despite the challenges, Kenoteq is far from being the only company trying to make construction more sustainable. Other innovators include Qube, an India-based startup creating bricks out of plastic waste, and the ClickBrick which eliminates the use of cement through modular stacking (think real-life Lego).

There are signs of change. In Scotland, the government is reviewing a circular economy bill which encourages businesses to think creatively and economically about how they reuse and recycle materials. Boyle says that there are "contractors who would use [K-Briqs] tomorrow," if they were being produced on a large scale.

Over the next 18 months, Medero plans to get K-Briq machinery on-site at recycling plants. This will increase production while reducing transport-related emissions, she says, because trucks can collect K-Briqs when they drop off construction waste. "We need to have ways of building sustainably, with affordable, good quality materials that will last."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×