Candle Brick is a candle holder, hand made it has rough craft qualities and a down to earth character when brought into the home. They can be used individually or to build sculptural arrangements that bring striking candle light to a table top, shelf or bar.

This new studio edition by Sebastian Bergne is the culmination of a period of research into this most sustainable and culturally rich building material. With Bergne’s distinctive approach, Candle Brick challenges what we consider to be humble or noble, for inside the home or outside construction.

First Fifty is a special collaboration with The Art Design Lab. The first 50 Candle Bricks are being made available as a preview to the full edition of 500 together with three original preparatory drawings. The drawings are available here

Based in Paris, The Art Design Lab is known for exploring the archives of international designers, revealing their sketches, preparatory drawings, research work, plans and models. The selection of work highlights the scarcity, quality, creativity and know-how of designers of furniture and accessories, fashion, architecture and landscape.

Brick is well established as one of architectures most efficient and sustainable building components, as a raw material, production process, in use, re-use and ultimately when recycled. It is natural, hi quality and durable during all phases of its life cycle.

Bergne’s approach to the project started with the local (London) production resource. The idea to value and develop the use of this traditional large scale craft process was key. After a long gestation period came the Candle Brick, a simple and enjoyable household object inspired by the brick itself. It draws attention to historic crafts within traditional building materials and opens the potential of alternative revenue streams for normally very categorised manufacturing.

The Brick is hand made in large quantity using traditional techniques in a historic factory on the edge of London. Locally sourced clay is fashioned into shape using a simple wooden mould. After the bricks have been dried for two weeks in carefully controlled conditions they are fired to around a thousand degrees over 24hrs. Three days of cooling follow before the kiln can finally be unpacked.

Variations in colour and texture are due to slight fluctuations in temperature within the large kiln and the hand made nature of the process. As a result, each brick is clearly unique and will improve in time by showing age and wear on its beautifully uneven surface.