Hollow clay bricks form the gridded facade of this faculty building at a university in the Polish city of Katowice, providing privacy and shade to the interiors while still allowing light to enter.

The Department of Radio and Television building was designed for the University of Silesia by Warsaw studio Grupa 5 Architekci, Barcelona firm BAAS Arquitectura, and local office Ma?eccy Biuro Projektowe.
The project team won a competition with a design that seeks to seamlessly integrate the new facility into the existing historic streetscape.

The building completes the existing block and echoes the massing of the neighbouring tenements. Its street-facing elevation wraps around a preserved section of a traditional multi-family home to increase its sense of connection with the past.
"The biggest challenge was acknowledging the beauty of the damaged ancient fabric? and inviting it to co-create new space," said the project team, "be it through its incorporation into the new building or opening up the views and glazed surfaces towards interior courtyards and outhouses of the neighbouring buildings."

Materials chosen for the building's exterior match the existing palette found along the street. The facade is formed from hundreds of openwork ceramic blocks that tonally match the brick of the existing structures.
"External openwork serves as a kind of a 'net curtain' ? a screen that has been put onto the building," said the architects."This is an...