As a Civil Engineer & Software Engineer, we're always limited by the Construction Budget; no matter how cool something is.

Even brick masonry now is split-face and limited to at-grade elevations.

Speaking of reinventing, I'm still waiting on Elon Musk's eco-bricks [1] and whenever foamed metals [2] become popular.

[1] - https://interestingengineering.com/boring-companys-eco-brick...

[2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_foam

Do you mean Autoclaved aerated concrete?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclaved_aerated_concrete

That is one example, but there are lots of types of concrete building materials that have significant advantages over brick for various applications.

> We already have several reinventions of the brick which are stronger and more eco-friendly -- we call them concrete blocks.

This.

Not only that, but in concrete alone there are a myriad of concrete types and tech improvements throughout the years.

The whole article is founded in a false premise. It's as if naive salespeople were expecting no one in the construction industty would have any idea of what a brick is and how construction technology has been changing throughout the years.

There isn’t much eco-friendly about cement.

I was referring to the relative comparison being made with clay brick, the same comparison the article was making.

Of course, there are even better alternatives, like building your home out of solar sequestered carbon solids, i.e. wood.

Wood is not cheap outside Europe/North America and few other countries. Concrete is still the cheapest option along with steel if i am not mistaken. One thing is observe is that downsizing or reducing the size of the house is not considered a popular option.

Yeah, I lost it when TFA referred to bricks as "The building blocks of modern suburban homes." I'm not sure what suburbs the author is familiar with where new homes are made of structural brick.

The article is fairly UK-centric, and in the UK, most suburban homes are made of brick.

"Brick" homes are common in the US too, but most made after WWII are simply veneers over a structure of a different material. Are you sure that's not the case there? I did an image search for "uk home construction", and all of the instances on the first page also appear to be veneers.

Example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/615000-new-...

I'm another UK resident/former resident who can confirm that at least some new suburban homes are constructed primarily from bricks.

The article says 1.5 trillion bricks are produced annually...wonder where they are getting used. In North America their use seems to have been relegated to facades.

In central/southern Ontario, nearly all homes have brick facades (stick-built frames), even cheap subdivision homes and new construction. I'd put it at something like 80%-90%. I have no idea why brick is so popular here, but that's a lot of bricks.

Brick exteriors do not burn. Brick exteriors are much more rugged to the elements. Brick exteriors do not require maintenance of painting, etc. Brick exterior houses are cheaper to insure. There's lots of reasons for brick exterior than just aesthetics.

I agree with everything you said (particularly the no maintenance part), but I think there must be another explanation as to why brick facades are so prevalent on southern Ontario houses. Other areas with similar climates and population levels (say, Minnesota) have much fewer brick homes.

It probably comes down to tradition. In the old parts of any city, all of the 100 year-old houses have brick exteriors, as well as most of the houses built since then.

Thermal mass too, I think - though it's also not uncommon to see a lot of brick construction in areas where timber is in shorter supply (whether that's because it's already been logged, is protected from logging, or trees just aren't very big).

Maybe not in North America but in Europe and the middle east it is very common.