Although we're fond of our brick built structures in the UK be aware that modern brick built houses in the UK are often just a facade of brick, with all the internal structural materials pure wood, including the inside of exterior walls. Where a Victorian property like the one I live in will have a brick outer wall, a gap and then another brick wall, modern construction tends to have a brick outer facade, a layer of insulation and then what was brick in the Victorian house is a layer of wood sheeting such as blockboard. Where my Victorian place has internal brick walls, modern houses just have stud partitions made out of wood and plasterboard. This type of brick clad timber framing has been the norm for most new build houses for the last 30 years or so.
Some houses being built at the moment in the UK are timber framed and then clad with non traditional materials like American houses, eschewing the traditional brick cladding. A giveaway that this construction is being used is when they hang the windows when only the timer frame is up. Sometimes they go to the ridiculous point of using exterior brick 'tiles' that are less than an inch thick to give this type of construction a brick-built appearance! Gone are the days where new buildings were regarded as essentially permanent, new build buildings come with a 'design life' than can be as little as 30 years in the case of some large commercial developments.
Some NZ houses have been built with brick outers for 80 years and here it's known as brick veneer.
Historically we built entirely of wood as it was plentiful however brick veneer construction offers advantages of lower maintenance and before compulsory insulation came into effect here houses of brick veneer was also warmer.
Today with the labor costs of building in brick there is a move back to total timber construction with just variations of the types of exterior cladding used.
Climate has a lot to do with the way dwellings are built as we discovered when visiting our middle one in Perth where today they still use a lot of brick for exterior structural primarily to keep the heat out.
Double brick exterior and one main internal brick wall that's rendered smooth that also serves a a main structural component of the build.
Pretty strong however how they might withstand the shaky isles in NZ is another story.
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