Most children will have played with Lego bricks at some point in their lives, and everyone is aware of how they work – click together components to create walls and roofs, ships and space-craft, cars and animals.
An Israeli developer has designed a set of building bricks for full-scale buildings. Made of concrete, they slot together, so a building can be constructed in a much shorter space of time than with conventional bricks, and cause less mess and waste. They can be used for every part of a building, not just the walls, and will use fewer resources.
Channels are built into each brick to provide conduits for piping for water and gas, and electricity cables etc. A fascia panel is removed to allow access, and is replaced after work is done. The fascia panels can be pre-treated for interior or exterior use, meaning the buildings will be ready to use without having to wait for plastering, painting, rendering etc.
Insulation can be done at the pre-assembly stage also. Each brick will be tailor-made to the architects’ plans, and the whole building supplied as a package to be assembled on site, in much the same way as some wooden buildings are now.
These Smart Bricks will be immensely strong, and have been designed to withstand earthquakes and other weather-related hazards.
These bricks are at the proto-type stage, and funding is being sought to progress and manufacture them on a large commercial scale.
Ronnie Zohar, the owner of Kite Bricks, said that his motivation was to provide “the solution for building from Africa to Manhattan.â€