A new dermatology office in North Richland Hills, Texas, has been transformed into what designers call a "visual playground" using innovative thin brick technology. The 836-square-meter building, designed by US-based architecture studio An.onymous for Northstar Dermatology, represents a bold departure from traditional healthcare architecture through its striking use of Acme Brick's Fusion thin brick system.
The building's most defining feature is its exterior facades, which are completely enveloped in thin, glazed bricks from Acme Brick's Fusion range. The architects specifically selected the modular Panama City Glossy brick, which possesses a distinctive pearlescent quality that creates dynamic visual changes as the sun moves throughout the day. This iridescent effect gives the building a constantly evolving appearance that challenges conventional expectations of brick construction.
To maximize the visual impact of these specialized bricks, An.onymous mounted them to the building's elevations at various unexpected angles, incorporating both stacked and running bond patterns. The design strategy includes irregularly placed movement joints and asymmetrical window cutouts that deliberately break the brick facades into non-uniform sections. This approach creates what Acme Brick describes as a "visual playground" that fundamentally "challenges traditional notions of brick construction."
The reflective properties of the glazed thin bricks are central to the building's appeal, as they appear to shift and change with the sun's movement throughout the day. According to Acme Brick, "Acme Brick Fusion plays a crucial role in achieving this unique design. Thin brick enables creative applications impossible with traditional brick construction. In designing a facade that is both visually striking and symbolically rich, An.onymous challenges our understanding of what brick can do."
An.onymous has described their approach to the facades as creating "oblique drawings of the buildings themselves." The studio explained that "the thin brick system, used with varied stacked and running bond patterns in horizontal and diagonal arrangements, conforms to the drawn projections on the facades, while exposing the symbolic quality of the material as a non-brick – a tiling system that only signifies brick."
The innovative facade design also reflects the building's interior planning philosophy. The asymmetrical window placements and overall exterior composition mirror the building's asymmetrical floor plan, which was developed through a computer-generated study focused on optimizing circulation patterns. This integration of form and function demonstrates how contemporary architectural technology can inform both practical and aesthetic design decisions.
According to Acme Brick, these collective design elements result in a building that "presents a bold, contemporary take on healthcare design." The project represents a significant departure from the typically sterile and institutional appearance of most medical facilities, instead creating an environment that could serve as a model for future healthcare architecture.
Acme Brick, which was founded in 1891, claims to be the world's largest US-owned brick manufacturer. The company currently operates from 15 brick manufacturing plants across four US states, making it a major player in the American construction materials industry. The success of this Texas project demonstrates the potential for innovative building materials to transform architectural possibilities in the healthcare sector and beyond.
