What materials are preferred heavily depends on the local climate, too! Those bricks probably work great for the sweet spot Portugal is in for weather. They’d be very bad up here in the Midwest US, thermal mass works against you when it’s below freezing out.

I’ve done a lot of what probably sounds like brick slander here but I’m not a hater, my dream home would have a brick exterior with a wood frame interior. I’ve just worked in a construction-adjacent industry for a long time and wanted to dispel the misinformation this guy is peddling