A five-piece cavity nesting box for new build instillation; designed for the conservation of House Sparrows, and manufactured using a traditional brick-making process.
Bird Brick provides a nesting cavity designed specifically to meet the requirements of House Sparrows. The design is built into house or garden walls. The nesting site is a separate sealed cavity, which can be accessed via a small entrance hole in the external surface of a brick wall, providing an ideal nesting site that will last as long as the building itself. The stopper brick can be removed and the cavity cleared every 2 to 5 years, the stopper is then re-pointed back into place.
Having always loved garden birds, I was shocked to find that the chirpy house sparrow was registered as endangered. Over the past 50 years the house sparrow population has decreased by almost 70%, and I decided I wanted to do something to help with their conservation. One of two potential causes for this decrease is a loss of nesting sites. House Sparrows are sociable birds and like to nest in small colonies of 3 to 4 breeding pairs, in and around our homes. However as these holes and gaps are being filled up for better insulation, they are running out of places to nest.
That I have used traditional ceramic brick material means my design has low thermal movement, can be placed out of reach from predators such as cats and other birds, as well as maintaining the structural integrity of standard bricks and by retaining the language of traditional building materials it is visually unobtrusive. As far as I am aware I have not seen any other products or designs that have used the traditional brick making process or material.
The dream would be for this to become legislation, so that all new build must include 2 or 3 of the Bird Bricks. I have contacted people from the RSPB and BTO, but I am yet to hear anything back.
The Bricks were made and produced with the help of MBH Freshfield Lane brickworks in West Sussex, England. Now I have graduated I am looking to intern, and learn more about the industry. I am also exhibiting my Bird Bricks again at London Design Festival 2013, with some of my fellow graduates; the show is called Nous (gotnous.co.uk).
