3 ideas
Laying bricks on edge rather than flat, with alternating headers and stretchers, creates a wall of standard thickness that encloses a continuous internal air cavity. This uses roughly a quarter fewer bricks and noticeably less mortar than a solid English-bond wall. The trapped air also insulates, keeping interiors cooler in hot climates, and the wall is typically left unplastered as a fair-faced finish.
In a reinforced concrete roof slab, the concrete in the lower tension zone does little structural work beyond holding the steel in place. That dead concrete can be replaced with cheap, lightweight fillers such as clay tiles, pots, or waste brick. This cuts concrete, steel, and weight, and it leaves a patterned ceiling that needs no plastering.
Plastering, painting, and cladding hide a material's true nature and add cost, so leaving brick, stone, and structure exposed saves money while showing how the building is made. Devices born of thrift, like the perforated jali wall that replaces costly windows while giving ventilation, filtered light, and shade, turn out to be the building's most beautiful features. Cost reduction and climate-suited design therefore support aesthetic quality rather than compromise it.