The winners of the Wienerberger Brick Award 2012 have been announced at a ceremony in Vienna’s City Hall. Five international architects were awarded for their outstanding work, for projects using brick as a construction material. The five-person jury chose South African architect Peter Rich as grand-prize winner and winner of the category “Special Solution with Brick” for the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa. The “Non-Residential Building” category was won by Scottish architectural firm NORD for its innovative electrical substation for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Architect Bart Lens convinced the jury in the “Single Family House” category with his project titled The Rabbit Hole “Single-Family House”. The Portuguese architects and brothers Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus received the “Residential Building” Brick Award for their ‘house for elderly people’ in Alcácer do Sal. While in the final category, “Conversion”, Slovakia’s Pavol Paňák scored a win with his personal architectural, brick-built hideaway.

The Brick Award, which has been presented in a two-year cycle by the world’s largest brick producer since 2004, recognises particularly successful examples of modern brick architecture. The award is endowed with a total of €27,000 in prize money. “With the Wienerberger Brick Award, we want to cast a spotlight on the innovative and versatile use of brick in today’s modern architecture,” says Wienerberger CEO Heimo Scheuch. “All of the projects give you a sense of the instinctive feel with which the architects showed consideration for the local environment. This is also reflected in the choice of materials.”

International architecture critics and architecture journalists submitted nominations for scores of outstanding buildings constructed using clay products. A total of 50 projects from 28 countries on five continents were shortlisted and the final decision was made by the international jury composed of architects Plamen Bratkov (Bulgaria), Rudolf Finsterwalder (Germany), Hrvoje Hrabak (Croatia), John Foldbjerg Lassen (Denmark) and Zhang Lei (China).