While a regular fixture of Clerkenwell EH Smith Architectural Solutions installation, Light as Brick, has lit up Clerkenwell Design Week. Developed with architect and designer Simon Astridge, it explores how traditional masonry materials can move beyond their conventional architectural role, and challenges the company’s steadfast image as a purely masonry-based brick supplier, with the introduction of glass.

Installed at the company’s showroom on St John Street, the project consists of a series of illuminated objects, tables and sculptural forms. Created in collaboration with Arcitile, the installation combines welded steel armatures with translucent glass bricks from Fornace Sant’Anselmo and heavily textured ceramic units from its experimental Terraformæ range.

The result challenges many of the assumptions traditionally associated with brick, not least weight, opacity and repetition, and instead presents the material as something tactile, atmospheric and unexpectedly delicate. Internally illuminated with LEDs, the pieces play with contrasts between solidity and transparency, erosion and refinement, and explore what happens when brick is removed from the wall and reconsidered as an object in its own right.

For EH Smith, the installation reflects a longer-standing engagement with material experimentation and architectural collaboration. Founded in 1922, the company has evolved from a traditional brick supplier into one of the UK’s best-known specialists in façade systems, ceramic and terracotta cladding, and architectural material specification. Over the past century, it has worked closely with architects, contractors and designers on projects ranging from civic and education buildings to large-scale commercial developments, helping bring increasingly ambitious material concepts into the built environment.

While Light as Brick forms part of the wider creative programme surrounding Clerkenwell Design Week 2026, it also highlights a broader shift taking place across architecture and interiors. Materials once valued primarily for structural or functional performance are increasingly being reconsidered through a more sensory and expressive lens, with texture, tactility and atmosphere playing a greater role in specification.

The hand-cast glass bricks, produced in a Veneto furnace active for more than a century, contrasted with the deliberately distorted ceramic forms developed through Terraformæ’s more experimental firing processes. Together, they demonstrate how traditional fire-based manufacturing techniques can still generate entirely contemporary material outcomes.

Technical delivery and fabrication were led by Arcitile, the specialist surfaces contractor founded by Tony Goodall and Dan Evans, whose work often focuses on complex commercial and architectural surface installations.

Rather than simply presenting products, Light as Brick positions masonry materials within a wider conversation about materiality, perception and architectural atmosphere — an approach increasingly visible across both the stone and surfaces sectors.