What you are talking about are facing bricks, which are used on the facade. In Europe almost all new residential construction is made from masonry blocks, which

What you are talking about are facing bricks, which are used on the facade. In Europe almost all new residential construction is made from masonry blocks, which are basically just bigger bricks. They are structural (in terms of compression, but have low tensile strength which is probably why they aren't popular in North America) They have a good R-value They are easy to work with We are building a house right now, and the cheapest, quickest and easiest part so far has been building the walls. We are using clay blocks[0] which are R-10. Compared to other tasks no specialised equipment is needed, it's literally just manual labour. When you get to a corner or window, they can easily be cut with an angle grinder or even by hand (for a rougher finish). The house is two floors and the exterior walls for each floor took less than a week to build. It's quicker (building forms takes a long time), cheaper, better insulating and better for the environment than monolithic concrete. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__T8PWnntkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__T8PWnntkU - Not this exact product, but this was the best explanation I could find in English.