What makes a good brick?

“A good brick represents a perfect adaptation for a sustainable border lifestyle.” So wrote Festival collaborator Erin Martin Ross in her 2000 Festival program essay. A good brick should be porous enough to “slow the transfer of heat during the intensely hot summer months,” and at the same time “capture and retain internal heat during the winter.” A good brick also needs be heavy enough to support a two-story building. In other words, the thermal properties of border bricks must meet the practical needs of a border lifestyle.

The underlying themes of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo program reflected the rich interplay of regional traditions, cultural knowledge, and sustainable practices in an area that straddles riverbeds, environmental zones, and countries. Brick making has ancient roots in Mexico, going back thousands of years. In the mid-1960s, the growth of the maquiladora program led to a surge in demand for warehouse-type buildings to house U.S.-owned manufacturing and assembly plants—made of brick. The bricks were local and could be made quickly by small-scale family enterprises. But brick making also had an environmental downside: the fuel source to fire the bricks—old car tires—was highly polluting.

—Erin Martin Ross

Overcoming the pollution of these fires has been a challenge. At the Festival, the brick builders demonstrated a new technology developed in collaboration with the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy at the University of New Mexico. They built two dome-covered kilns connected by brick channels. As effluents pass into the second loaded kiln they are filtered, reducing the pollution.