Cool Tactility – Mano Glass Bricks by Eco Outdoor and Tom Fereday
Like all great parts of the Eco Outdoor story, our Mano glass bricks began with a conversation. We’d been thinking about bricks for a while when a chat between our founder Ben Kerr, and industrial designer Tom Fereday – who was already experimenting with cast glass – sparked the idea of this first-to-market concept. Let’s do bricks, we thought, and cast glass bricks at that. Here, Ben and Tom reflect on their experience bringing the glass bricks to life.
Q: How did your collaboration on the glass brick collection come about?
𝗕𝗲𝗻 𝗞𝗲𝗿𝗿: Whatever we are doing, Tom and I seem to coincide with similar ideas. I started talking about bricks, and he said, “I'm working in cast glass, I've been working on objects, and I've got some ideas around bricks and blocks,” so I suggested we work together. Tom had some viewpoints around our standard long-format glass bricks, and we thought, “why don’t we start looking at curves as an option as well?”. It was really a collaborative process between Tom and our business, but it was a very easy conversation because we had both done some exploration already. 𝗧𝗼𝗺 𝗙𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗮𝘆: From my perspective as an industrial designer, what came up was perhaps looking at how to take some of those narratives and go more three-dimensional, to almost work on a toolkit for architects and studio designers to develop their own forms from these designs.
"One of the things I have in common with Eco Outdoor is that we really value the raw finish of materials."
Q: Tom, what were some of the qualities you’d been exploring in cast glass that you were looking to bring to the Mano bricks?
𝗧𝗙: One of the things we have in common is that we really value the raw finish of materials. The raw casting of glass has a character to it and a depth of quality; you don't need to overdesign it – the most important thing is celebrating the material. When you work in building products, you are working on a product on a large scale, so it's important not to over-design, because on a whole wall it's quite significant. It was about trying to be constrained and work on the perceived value that the glass inherently had. Eco Outdoor had worked on open-poured glass bricks where each one had unique variations or imperfections, such as little bubbles. We also worked with 70 per cent recycled glass, so each piece is different, there's a real character to the product.
Q: What prompted you to work with an elongated Roman shape brick?
𝗕𝗞: We felt like our thinner, longer linear format brick has more architectural appeal. If you look back, it’s what's worked best over a long period of time. We're starting by pushing the extremities; no one's ever done a long glass brick, so we wanted to start with that. 𝗧𝗙: From my perspective, it was about maximising the celebration of material. It offers less broken blocks as you halve the number of visible joints across a wall. The appeal to me was having as much glass as possible in the piece, and I think there's a unique aesthetic to that.
"We're starting by pushing the extremities; no one's ever done a long glass brick, so we wanted to start with that."
Q: Ben, did you always feel that the bricks would have a handcrafted element to them?
𝗕𝗞: Yes, definitely. When you use quality materials and you allow those materials to be expressed well, they just get better with time, they become timeless. So, when you use raw materials and celebrate what they really are, it has a timelessness that I think resonates with people. It resonates from an aesthetic perspective and from an emotional perspective as well. If you see the glass bricks, you want to touch them. I think that's where Tom and I are aligned.
Q: Can you share some of the brick application ideas that you're excited by?
𝗧𝗙: I exhibited part of the collection at Milan Design Week, and the feedback was fantastic. It's been interesting because there’s been a large variety of interest across interior and architecture. We’ve had enquiries from interior designers around possible retail use – for example, as a bar or integrated furniture elements in building design – through to enquiries around façades. For me, what’s exciting is that this one brick has evolved into a collection and now we're continuing to grow that collection. We're putting objects into the market that could be in a building for centuries to come. That whole conversation around materiality and longevity is important; I’m proud to say this is a product that can go into a building and bring a purity of material and quality.
Q: Ben, what are you looking forward to?
𝗕𝗞: We’ve had an enquiry from New York for an artist to use the bricks to create a glass pyramid, and we're also looking at a project in a traditional apartment where they're wanting a glass wall to let in light. So we think the potential applications are pretty massive, but we're only just starting to see the way that could evolve and develop. We have a curved brick, a block, and we also want to do a hook curve. But our intention is to slowly release these forms as we learn, and we see how the industry responds.
"The raw casting of glass has a character to it and a depth of quality; you don't need to overdesign it – the most important thing is celebrating the material."
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