At this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, Taylor Maxwell’s London showroom became a setting for material exploration, as Camtech Building Products and Caprice Bricks invited architects and designers to step behind the sample board and engage directly with the creative potential of engobed brickwork.
Through live demonstrations, visitors were able to explore how colour, tone and texture can influence the character of a brick façade. The sessions created a more hands-on dialogue around specification, moving beyond passive product selection and towards a more collaborative exchange between designer, supplier and manufacturer.
For architects looking to articulate a building’s identity through its external envelope, this type of engagement proves valuable at an early stage. Bespoke brick finishes offer a way to consider surface, context and architectural expression while retaining the familiar material language of clay brick.
Alex Hutchinson, Area Sales Manager at Camtech Building Products, said, “Clerkenwell Design Week was a fantastic platform to showcase the creative possibilities of engobed brickwork. Through our live engobing demonstrations, we were able to engage directly with architects and designers, sparking conversations around colour, texture and bespoke façade design. It was incredibly rewarding to see such enthusiasm for the process and the opportunities it offers for creating unique architectural identities. Thank you to Taylor Maxwell for the opportunity.”
Marc van Rijn, Sales Director at Caprice Bricks, added, “Clerkenwell Design Week at the Taylor Maxwell showroom was a fantastic event. We had the pleasure of inviting architects to create their own engobed brick finishes, which led to inspiring conversations and creative ideas. Thank you to everyone who joined us and explored the possibilities of customised brick design. It was a great experience and we would love to do this again next year.”
The format reflected a broader shift in how materials are discussed and specified, with greater emphasis on early-stage collaboration and direct engagement with finish, colour and texture. Rather than treating brick as a fixed choice, the demonstrations positioned it as a material with scope for variation and design expression. By bringing manufacturers and specifiers together, Taylor Maxwell created a space for practical material dialogue, and for practices seeking to give buildings greater character through their façade, the conversation increasingly begins at the material itself.
Taylor Maxwell’s Clerkenwell showroom also included Tenmat, Swisspearl, Northcot Brick, Forterra, Wienerberger, Ibstock, Lowie Bricks, Vogelensangh, Crest Brick Slate & Tile, Telling Rainscreens and The Bespoke Brick Company.
