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Our wall held up pretty well to our water test. There were no leaks through the window opening and the other moisture-proofing measures (sarking, flashing) kept everything else nice and dry. I did get a bit wet from the hose overshooting the roof, but the wall held up just fine.

Detailing the wall was interesting. Because the BCA makes no reference to a cavity with reverse brick construction, it is possible to design a wall that is either fairly thin (as narrow as 90mm for studs + 110 for the bricks, if you specify a thin cladding to the exterior and add no plasterboard to the interior) or quite thick. In the end, we built our wall with a 20mm cavity, but with the thickness of the cladding (salvaged from pallets), the window had quite a deep reveal. We thought this was quite a nice feature and complemented the mass of an inteior brick wall nicely.

Almost all of the materials were salvaged and reused. The main structural components were made of pallets, which helped in terms of minimising waste, as most elements were already the correct size. The roofing and some of the timber was found at the Outlook shop, offcuts from other projects. In the end, the new materials we used amounted to a handful of nails and a few metres of aluminium foil.

We also limited the use of power tools. On the first day, everything was dismantled, cut, nailed and screwed by hand. I had a go at using tinsnips to cut the roofing to size (one sheet had to be cut in half), but soon abandoned that and resorted to the angle grinder on day 2. We also had a bit of help from a cordless drill and power saw.

It was a really interesting exercise following the wall through from research to design to construction. I think we all learned a lot , particularly about what works on paper but not when it comes to construction, which will be valuable in the future when designing. Plus, it was kinda fun.

Our wall ended up being a bit over-engineered and very sturdy and we are now on the hunt for a new home for it, rather than consigning it to landfill.

So, if anyone is in the market for 1/4 of a cubby...

ESD reverse brick video

Stage 2 Photos

Here are some images from our final day of building and testing.


All the materials in our window are reused - plastic packaging for glazing, aluminium railing for the frame and tip shop sources chipboard for the reveal:


We also used the plastic packaging for flashing:

Fitting the window and wrapping the sarking over the flashing:


We reused old pallets from the Enviro Shop for most of the timber in our wall. Here we are finishing off the cladding:


The timber for the roof truss was found at the Outlook Shop at Reservoir tip:


The wall is insulated between the studs. We used an old pillow:


Glenn found an old section of steel angle to use as a lintel over our window for the bricks:


Here's our finished wall! The roofing is from the tip shop, and we had a great time using the angle grinder to cut the sheet in half.


There are a few more images from our day of construction in our Twitter feed in the side bar. Stand by for some more images and the video of out final test.

Materials-Claddings

Vinyl Cladding – Vinyl cladding is a chlorine based plastic cladding system

Website - http://www.austech.com.au/products/DuratuffSelectVinylCladding.aspx- http://www.projectlink.com.au/directory/austech/News/vinyl-cladding-is-the-environmentally-sustainable-wall-cladding-system.html

Embodied energy – The environmental production cost of Vinyl cladding is supposed to be around half of an equivalently sized solid brick wall. Vinyl consists of around 60% chlorine which is extracted from salt (NaCl sodium chloride)

Recyclability – most elements of vinyl can be recycled and reused in the manufacturing process. In America, more than 1 billion pounds of vinyl was recycled in the last year. This said, large amounts of plastics are not recycled, heavily contributing to landfill. The time taken for plastic to biodegrade has not yet been determined.

Here’s an interesting video on recycling plastic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Lg_kvLaAM&feature=related

Labour costs – vinyl cladding is constructed in much the same way a regular timbre shiplap building would be built. However, unlike timbre it never needs to be repainted, reducing the labour in upkeep and the environmental cost of repainting.

Insulation qualities - vinyl cladding is usually used in conjunction with a 3^rd party insulator

Durability – vinyl cladding comes with a 50 year warrantee

Shiplap timbre

Website – http://www.shiplap.com.au/ - http://www.weathertex.com.au/

Embodied energy – if sourced from a plantation, timbre is a highly sustainable material, only consuming energy in its transportation and general upkeep of the timbre. Also during the time from planting to felling, the manufacture of timbre is essentially a temporary eco system.

Recyclability – provided that the timbre is not altered by chemicals, it can be returned to the environment where it will be broken down by bacteria, enriching the soil. Timbre can also be reformed into different wood based products such as MDF.

Labour costs – the initial labour cost of timbre is fairly standard for a cladding material, however, the upkeep of timbre is fairly intensive, requiring constant work to ensure the timbre lasts.

Insulation qualities – timbre cladding is usually used in conjunction with a 3^rd party insulator

Durability – if you upkeep your external timbre annually it can last 80-90 years without any major alterations.

Fibre cement sheeting(Eco-cladding)

Website – http://www.ecohousing.com/pages/eco-cladding.html

Embodied energy – the manufacturing plant is designed to be mobile, drastically reducing transport costs by making the material closer to the site and sourcing materials locally. However fibre cement sheeting is a concrete based material, causing it to largely contribute to green house gas emissions in its curing process.

Recyclability – if kept in expectable condition fibre cement sheeting can be used in new builds, otherwise it will contribute to landfill

Labour costs – Ecocladding is aimed at the “do it yourself” market, this implies a level of “ease of use”, requiring glue and screws to fix the cladding to existing walls or framing via metal top-hats. Ecocladding is also light weight, reducing transportation costs, and easy to work with, only requiring basic tools to be used.

Insulation qualities – 60mm R3.01, 80mm R4.02, 52mm R 2.7 and 64mm R 3.3

Durability - fibre cement sheeting should last around 80 years, requiring repainting fairly regularly depending on the quality of paint used.

Alucobond – Alucabond consists of a two 5mm aluminium sheets with a polyethene core

Website – http://www.alucobond.com.au/html/s01_home/home.asp

Embodied energy – the creation of aluminium uses vast amounts of energy compared to other material like timbre. However, recycling aluminium uses only around 10% of the energy required to manufacture it in the first place.

Recyclability – recycled aluminium uses on 10% of the energy used to create new aluminium

Labour costs – the labour costs are similar to most cladding materials, requiring the material to be fixed to a series of top-hats

Insulation qualities – Alucobond is usually coupled with 3^rd party insulators

Durability – alocubond should last around 80 – 90 years

Zincalume steel cladding

Website – http://www.zincalume.com.au/

Embodied energy – although not as high as aluminium, the production and manipulation of steel is consumes large amounts of energy.

Recyclability – zincalume steel, if not corroded can be either melted down and reformed or re-used on another build

Labour costs – steel cladding is relatively easy to work with, it’s light weight implying easy manoeuvrability around a building sight and can be fixed either to the outside of the studwork (in a horizontal situation) or to a series of top-hats (in a vertical situation).

Insulation qualities – zincalume steel cladding is very thin and fluctuates greatly with exterior temperatures, insulation within studwork is vital.

Durability – bluescope steel offer a warranty of 15 years

One Point Four Hectares

http://onepointfourhectares.blogspot.com/p/about-house_31.html

This is an interesting blog explaining the ongoing developments of an “eco-house” along the central coast of NSW. If you want to see an actual project using reverse brick veneer this blog has been fairly thorough with photo documentation from July 2010- now. By looking at these you get a good outlook of the overall construction method of reverse brick veneer. (To see the RBV wall, check out the east wall on their January 2011 post).

The idea behind this project is to take 1.4 hectare piece of land that is overrun by non-native plants and build a house with a native rainforest garden that respects its context. Although not yet completed this building will utilize reverse brick veneer walls along with a concrete slab as a thermal mass to regulate the interior temperature. This, in conjunction with a plethora of other sustainable and ecologically friendly design solutions, evocative formwork and clever use of large amounts glazing accentuate the way that sustainable living can be allied with contemporary ideals of “indoor out door” living and “harmony with the natural landscape”.

“The internal temperature of the house will be controlled using the principles of passive thermal design. This has resulted in the north facade of the house being almost fully glazed. The thermal mass is provided by a concrete floor and reverse brick veneer walls. A wood burner will also be installed that will be used to provide direct heat into thelounge and fan forced warm air in the main bedrooms”

Finlay-Torquay beach house

http://www.farnanfindlay.com.au/residential/ >click on beach house Torquay

In this project, reverse brick veneer was used as an extension onto an old 1950’s fibro structure.Not only has the architect (Farnan Findlay) adapted a 1950’s structure to accommodate 21^stcentury way of living, he has established a level of positive interaction with existing building and a reverential air to its Australian context by using Spotted Gum to clad the main extension as well as splashing it through the various alterations of the 1950’s beach shack. Interestingly Findlay has opted to leave the interior skin of the reverse brick veneer wall unplastered, and instead has covered it with a thick layer of white paint

“The construction is reverse brick veneer. It has greater thermal performance than conventional brick veneer or double brick and gives the lightweight structure some valuable thermal mass”.

Stage 1 Photos

Another vote here for not so young and fit. Sunday was basically a write-off due to some very cranky discs in my lower back.

After a slow start, we got quite a bit done. The day began at the Enviro Shop picking up a load of pallets to go with the loot I scored at the Outlook shop. After getting all the tools together, Matt and I cut the aluminium profiles to size for the window frames:



The pallets we salvaged varied greatly in terms of the quality of the timber. We spent a fait bit of time breaking them down into the individual pieces of timber. While some of the pallets came apart really easily, others were nailed together pretty solidly. We also ran into ab bit of trouble cutting and nailing wood with stubborn nails still embedded.





We're using aluminium foil to represent sarking on our wall:



and as Glenn said, our frame is somewhat overengineered, but we had the timber...



After a slow start and a long day, we finished up just after dark with a partly clad frame.



Stand by for the last phase of construction (finishing off the window, cladding and roof) and our test. More photos from Saturday can be found on our Twitter feed in the bar to the right.

Construction - Stage 1

Well yesterday's construction adventure was educational, with the most obvious lesson today being that two years of being deskbound followed by a year and a half of being a student means I am no longer as young or as fit as I used to be. My old work pants don't fit quite as well either.

  We have added another layer of challenge to our project, attempting to use an absolute minimum of new materials, scrounging whatever we can while still producing a structurally sound and hopefully attractive result. We figure this is both environmentally better, minimising the embodied energy of our short-term project, as well as an investigation into the pitfalls of using recycled materials. It also helps the budget when you're an impoverished student..
  George hit the Tip Shop and scored some nice bits of wood and sheets of roofing, also providing some bricks from a stash at home. Matt sourced a 2nd hand window, but it proved too big for our purposes in the end. We raided the back of the Enviro Shop for some pallets and other waste materials. (even better, they were used for shipping solar grid connect inverters and as most shipping companies actually refuse to take back pallets these days, they were destined for disposal soon) While these materials are perhaps more suited for building a shanty town in a dystopian future, using actual structural grade recycled materials can only be easier than this....

  We started with trimming up some offcuts of aluminium solar panel mounting rails to make a resonable simulation of a window frame. I finally achieved a long-held desire of having a legitimate excuse for buying a wrecking bar and we proceeded to dismantle the pallets and recover the wood and nails. Our fears proved correct, none of the timbers were straight or consistent in any dimension and the hardness grades of wood varied from balsa to ironbark within the one pallet. There were also at least two different sizes of brick, with one type being around 10mm shorter than a standard brick. We decided not to use mortar for this project, again reducing embodied energy and making it easy for cleanup and recycling afterwards. The wall is small enough to be stable and structurally sound without mortar.

 Our frame design is waaay overengineered for a wall of this scale, but we decided to do it properly and put in all of the usual studs, noggings, lintel etc as a learning experience. An unexpected realisation is that because the internal wall is provided by the bricks you can get away with a lot of warping in the wall framing as there is no flat surface required for plaster fixing, especially if you are using a flexible outer skin that can handle a bit of 'character' such as radial sawn weatherboards or a vertical ship-lap style timber cladding in our case. This means you can use timber that would otherwise not be considered suitable for framing, meaning more efficient use of resources and hopefully some cost savings.

  So far it has all been hand tools and the only new materials used have been two nails (a particularly hard piece of wood meets bent nails = more bent nails) and the tinfoil. We didn't even use any artificial lighting until the last half hour or so. The wall frame and cladding is sorted, roof structure is cut and ready, next time we install and detail the window and assemble the structure then move onto testing. George will be posting the photos soon..

  Glenn

Materials

To be a viable material in a reverse veneer construction the masonry component must have a high thermal mass allowing heat to be stored and exerted at the most effective times to ensure that a constant temperature is established and easily maintained in an interior space.

Green energy bricks – green energy bricks are a relatively new material on the market and, like all new materials, bold claims of high performance ensue.

· Website http://www.greenenergybricks.com.au/

· Embodied energy – no information is advertised on there website, immediately implying that the embodied energy is high.

· Recyclability – the ability of polyisocyanurate to be recycled is relatively unproven

· Labour costs – green energy bricks are very easy to build with, they require no mortar, take up the same vertical and horizontal space as around 8 bricks and only weigh 2.7 Kg. They are also far lighter in terms of volume: mass making them easier to manoeuvre on a building site.

· Insulation qualities – green energy bricks have an amazing R8+ insulation rating. Considering that 60% of heat is lost in the average house through badly insulated walls and single glazed windows (35% and 25% respectively), the insulation qualities of a particular material is very important in terms of sustainable design

· Practicality in terms of reverse brick veneer – although green energy bricks achieve a very high level of insulation, if used in a veneer situation the wall thickness for exterior walls becomes a hindrance. The green energy brick itself is 320mm wide, combine that with a 40mm cavity 90mm stud work 10mm of plaster board and 40mm of cladding the overall thickness of an exterior wall ends up being around 500mm thick. In most residential cases this is a gross amount of area wasted on wall space, either detracting from room sizes, or adding to the buildings footprint. Green energy bricks are designed to be used as a standalone walling system. Although green energy bricks have a high insulation rating, they are not effective when trying to use them as a thermal mass. A reverse brick veneer wall requires the inner layer of masonry to store heat and exert at the most effective times . see http://www.brick.org.uk/_media/_images/about/aboutus-graph.jpg

Geobricks – Geobricks are a rammed earth, air dried bricks consisting of only 4% cement

· Website http://www.geobrick.com.au/geobrick.html

· Embodied energy – at least 2-6 tonnes less carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) on every new home compared to kiln fired solid bricks http://www.geobrick.com.au/co2-savings.html

· Recyclability – if care is taken in the demolition process, geobricks can be successfully salvaged and reused in new builds.

· Labour costs – the construction process is much the same as traditional kiln fire brickwork however the production is much more time consuming due to the fact that each brick is air dried rather than kiln fired

· Insulation qualities – geo bricks act very similarly to kiln fired brickwork in terms of insulation. R0.078

· Practicality in terms of reverse brick veneer – geobricks have the same level of practicality as kiln fired bricks in all areas except monitory.

Concrete blocks

· Website – http://www.boral.com.au/concreteblocks/concreteblocks.asp

· Embodied energy – concrete blocks are (obviously) made of concrete., which is one the leading producers CO2, accounting for 5% of the total CO2 produced by man. Concrete blocks also require mortar at every joint, contributing in the amount of cement needed in the construction process

· Recyclability – if properly demolished concrete blocks can be salvaged from buildings being knocked down and reused in new builds. Concrete blocks can also be ground down and used as an aggregate to new builds

· Labour costs – concrete block construction is relatively fast compared to clay bricks. This can be attributed to the larger size of the brick, meaning less bricks have to be physically laid to cover the same volume as clay bricks.

· Insulation qualities – R0.19

· Practicality in terms of reverse brick veneer – concrete blocks face the same problems as green energy bricks, they are vastly wider that traditional clay bricks causing impractical wall thickness when used in a veneer situation.

Traditional kiln fired clay bricks

· Website - http://www.australbricks.com.au/ , http://www.boral.com.au/ , http://www.fultonbrickyard.com.au/ , http://www.mdbrick.com.au/ for recycled bricks visit http://www.beaverbricks.com.au/ , http://www.paddysbricks.com.au/

· Embodied energy – traditional clay brick require kiln firing, (a kiln furnace is heated to around 1280˚C degrees and the clay is burned into a useable solid state). Heating this kiln requires massive amounts of energy.

· Recyclability – if care is taken during the demolishing of brick buildings, clay bricks can be washed and reused in new builds. However due to poorly constituted law, in the process of demolishing a buildings, (unlike most countries throughout Europe) you are in no way compelled (apart from having moral issues with the wastage of building materials) to conserve bricks so that they can be re-used. This is why one factor of brickwork being a large contributor to Australian landfill.

· labour cost – laying bricks is a very time consuming task due to the fact that every brick must be individually laid

· Insulation qualities – traditional clay bricks, by themselves have an R0.078 insulation rating, They are usually used in conjunction with a third party insulator and a stud frame.

· practicality in terms of reverse brick veneer – when reverse brick veneer is mentioned kiln fired clay bricks are generally implied as part of the process

I’m currently researching a few more materials that could be used for the cladding and masonry component of reverse brick veneer. I’ll post them up shortly

matt

Some Sketchup Sketches

One major factor with the non-standard wall structure is where to position the windows, inner wall or outer wall?

In the following series of sketches the window is shown in inner, middle and outer positions from the interior and exterior, demonstrating the different practical and aesthetic aspects.

 

 My preference is for the window to be mounted to the outer wall. This gives less framing exposed to the weather, a handy window shelf inside and looks better to my eye. Mounting the window to the interior gives better window shading though, beneficial if eaves are a problem (e.g. ground floor of a two storey house)

The whole effect is taken even further when a 50mm cavity is introduced between the brick and structural walls.

 

The following are just a few sketches of the proposed model.

 

 More details to come soon...


Glenn

There is an interesting article on the BPN website about RBV from July last year.

While it champions the use of RBV (endorsements from architect Glenn Murcutt and the Your Home Technical Manual), the article suggests some of the reasons the technique hasn't become more popular are:

While designers are becoming more aware of RBV as a more sustainable form of construction, the building trades seem to be behind in terms of both education and skills

Consumers are familiar with, and like the look of face brick

Brick is a low maintenance external cladding material

External brickwork is seen as highly secure and fire-resistant

External cladding is generally more expensive than plasterboard, adding to the overall cost of construction

On the up side, the article notes quite a bit of research into the performance of RBV and it's comparing quite well to other construction methods, especially in the type of climate we experience here in Melbourne.

BCA, AS & RBV

As we are beginning the process of sketching the details of our wall design, one thing that keeps coming up is confusion over whether a RBV wall is required to have a cavity. I can't find any explicit reference to reverse brick veneer construction anywhere in AS 3700 or Part 3 of the BCA.

The BCA states (emphases mine):

3.3.4.2 Width of cavity

In brick veneer and cavity masonry construction, a cavity must be provided between the inner and outer masonry leaves or the masonry leaf and the supporting frame as follows:

(a) Brick veneer - not less than 25 mm width

(b) Masonry - not less than 35 mm nor more than 65 mm width

(c) Except for mullions, the minimum width specified in (a) and (b) is to be maintained between the outer masonry leaf and any services, insulation or sheet bracing located in the cavity

(d) Where mullions are located within a cavity as permitted by (c), a vertical DPC must be placed between the outer masonry leaf and the mullion to prevent moisture penetration

The performance requirements of a waterproofing system proposed as an alternative solution to what is described in Part 3.3.4, refer to (bear with me!) Part 1.0.10 and Part 2.2.2:

P2.2.2 Weatherproofing

A roof and external wall (including openings around windows and doors) must prevent the penetration of water that could cause

(a) unhealthy or dangerous conditions, or loss of amenity for occupants; and

(b) undue dampness or deterioration of building elements

Basically, what I understand from this is that a cavity is required in masonry construction to prevent moisture penetrating through to the interior of the building, allow the moisture that does penetrate to escape and also to provide ventilation to prevent dampness.

Anecdotal evidence on the internets suggests some local councils, architects and engineers are insisting on a cavity, while the article I linked to earlier from yourhome.gov.au states:

No cavity is requited for RBV. The brick skin is laid tight to the wall frame without a cavity, as the external cladding provides the primary moisture barrier.

What do you guys think? Should we include a cavity in our RBV wall or not?

Retrofitting

Here is an interesting article about retrofitting RBV walls to a house in NSW's Northern Beaches.

I hadn't actually considered RBV to be a construction method suited to retrofitting an existing building, but in this house it seems to be a reasonable straight-forward and cost effective solution.

The article describes how:

• the existing building frame can be used, reducing the amount of demolition of the existing building
  
• the existing footings can generally be used (subject to appraisal by a structural engineer)
• cement render finish with a white set plaster top-coat was used on the inside walls, as it is important to maximise the interaction of the thermal mass with the room interior
• the set plaster top-coat looks exactly like the existing plasterboard linings when painted, ensuring that the renovation is not out of character with the original (unlike Harmony 9)

Below is a great detail showing the relationship between the existing stud wall and new brickwork:

Recycled materials

Over the next couple of weeks, we should begin sketching up some details of how we're actually going to build our RBV wall.

With this in mind, I just wanted to write something about the materials we will use in the actual construction.

Given this subject is all about sustainability, it would make little sense to go out and buy all new bricks, cladding, timber and a window. I have a large pile of bricks in the back yard to donate to the cause (the ecobricks website has some interesting data on the environmental benefits of using recycled bricks), but I'd also like to suggest we visit Outlook Market, or somewhere similar, to rummage around for the other materials.

I've grabbed some great things from the Mornington branch in the past, but there are a few other branches that might be more convenient for us.

We should also think about somewhere to perform the final experiment where the water we use can either be recycled (car wash?) or runs directly off to a garden bed or something.

Harmony 9

Mirvac's Harmony 9 prototype is an interesting case study in popularising RBV.

The building employs several techniques (see here and here) to achieve a 9.2 star energy rating, including passive solar design, insulation, water and energy saving measures and recycled materials.

RBV construction locates thermal mass to the interior, helps to stabilise temperatures in the building, therefore reducing the energy consumed by active heating and cooling.



I wonder, though, if people are put off RBV because brick is seen as a material to 'show off' and they think RBV will 'hide' it. Brick is relatively expensive, people think of it as an exterior cladding or structural material and are used to using colour (paint) rather than the natural colour and texture of a material when designing interiors.


When I visited, I was struck by the way Harmony 9 makes a feature of the RBV technique: the brickwork is integrated into the design of the building.

The bricks in the bedroom pictured at right were excess bricks left over from a special brick run, reclaimed and used in woven pattern as a feature wall.

The remainder of the wall is finished in plasterboard.







While the bedroom features reclaimed bricks, the livingroom features a wall of recycled bricks, supplied by ecobricks in Clayton.

I love the way a pattern has been created with the painted and different coloured bricks, rather than just using clean or new looking bricks as in the bedroom.



Perhaps making a feature of the interior brickwork, rather than hiding it behind a layer of paint, render or plasterboard, will encourage people to see the aesthetic design potential of RBV, as well as its role in designing a more sustainable building.

Industry Examples..

While largely ignored by the building industry, reverse brick veneer construction has been acknowledged by several mainstream sources as a good method of construction.
Home Improvment Pages says http://www.homeimprovementpages.com.au/article/Benefits_of_Reverse_Brick_Veneer
while Building Product News says http://bpn.com.au/Article/Behind-the-fa-231-ade-reverse-brick-veneer/519938.aspx
and http://bpn.com.au/Article/A-housing-eco-challenge/525735.aspx

There are construction companies around who specialise in this method of construction, such as http://www.ruralbuilding.com.au/ , while even the mainstream builders have begun to experiment, for example Mirvac and their Harmony 9 http://bpn.com.au/Article/Harmony-9-the-future-of-housing-design/519936.aspx and http://www.mirvacdevelopment.com/waverleypark/harmony-9-

Hopefully this indicates a shift towards reverse brick veneer constuction, although we don't hold out much hope of it taking over from conventional brick veneer....

Cheers,
  Glenn

Regulatory issues...

Reverse brick veneer construction is not explicitly covered in the relevant Australian Standards or BCA, which can cause some regulatory issues if you strike a particularly nasty pen-pusher.

Reverse Brick Veneer walls must comply with BCA Volume 2 Part 3.3 - Masonry, specifically 3.3.1.3 Internal Walls.

BCA Part 3.3.4 says the following regarding masonry walls.
3.3.4.2 Width of cavity
In brick veneer and cavity masonry construction, a cavity must be provided between the inner and outer masonry leaves or the masonry leaf and the supporting frame as follows:

(a) Brick veneer—not less than 25 mm width.

(b) Cavity masonry—not less than 35 mm nor more than 65 mm width.

In the case of reverse brick veneer the cavity is not required, as the masonry component is not exposed to the weather, but some building surveyors or other relevant approvers may insist on a cavity just to stick to the letter of the codes.

As far as Australian Standards go...AS1562 - Design and Installation of Sheet Roof and Wall Cladding can be relevant for the outer skin, while AS3700 - Masonry Structures and AS4774 Masonry in Small Buildings apply to the internal structure. The masonry component of the wall can either be structural, with the external cladding simply attached with battens, or it can be non-structural and rely on a timber or steel frame for support, in which case AS1684 - Timber Framing or AS4100 -  Steel Structures are also relevant.

Not being directly covered by the BCA or AS (on top of their natural resistance to trying anything new) also means that many builders or contractors will be reluctant to take on a reverse brick veneer construction.

Cheers,

  Glenn

Some initial research

Well, some quick browsing in the library has not turned up much useful information, but a deeper search may uncover more. We'll see...
   The internets have provided the usual plethora of information, opinion and outright nonsense, but the general consensus is that reverse brick veneer is a good construction method for our climate zone. The basic principle is that the thermal mass required for stabilising the internal temperatures in a home is actually placed on the inside and insulated from exterior temperature fluctuations, unlike the standard brick veneer home where the thermal mass is placed externally with insulation between it and the interior. The concepts of thermal mass are explained very well here. http://yourhome.gov.au/technical/fs49.html

Here is a nice detail picture of a reverse brick veneer construction for your viewing pleasure.



















Cheers,
   Glenn