CONCRETE!!!!!! (work in progress)

I have collected together a selection of inspirational concrete structures, buildings and interesting finishes.



Herzog de Meuron : the photo-concrete façade of the Fachhochschule Eberswalde's library, 1998


Beton Brut architecture: Architectural concrete left unfinished or roughly-finished after pouring and left exposed visually. The imprint of the wood or plywood forms used for pouring is usually present on 


Concrete art: This shows a more delicate softer looking side to concrete.

 

 




Lightwieght concrete: I discovered innovative ways of making concrete lighter so it can therefore be used for other means.

''The Lightweight Concrete Company: Foam Lite Industries makes extremely lightweight concrete. Our concretes can be up to 88% lighter than traditional concretes. How? We use expanded polystyrene (similar to small Styrofoam ® balls) as aggregate in place of sand and stone.
Today, manufacturers, contractors, builders, artisans, and individuals use Foam Lite concretes for buildings, homes, walls, water features, architectural elements, statuary, theme structures, insulating infill for standard concrete block, and green build applications. New uses for Foam Lite concretes are being developed all time.''
Structural lightwieght concrete is mainly used to reduce the dead load of concrete. This then enables the structural designer to reduce the size of any load bearing elements such as columns. 


LITRACON: Light transmitting concrete - brings translence to a traditionally opaque material.

I found this particularly interesting.
the final surface.

 

 

VERY strange restaurant concepts

Glass designs (Work in progress)

I decided to research some of the glass designs we were shown in a recent lecture in more detail.

I find the company B. lab Italia very interesting. B. lab is a multidisciplinery design lab which researches, develops and manufactures alternative architectural materials. The company is driven by the desire to break the ordinary static aspect of our furnished environments.

I feel that the image below sums up what B. lab is all about. A table, a normal piece of furniture found within a home but with a unique design twist. The effect of shattering glass was very simple to create, as I discovered and looks extremely effective. This technique of frozen explosion of glass is created by a sheet of tempered glass sealed between two panels. When it is shattered, numerous fragments are produced. Transparant panels can be used for windows, light covering with reflecting metal supports and tops furnishings. The impact is produced in various sizes, thickness and colour.



Fusion Glass designs are very innovative.

The Hepworth, Wakefield - Materials, design and lighting notes

-          The form of the building comprises ten intersecting trapezoidal pre-cast concrete volumes.

-          Building consists of ten gallery spaces, an auditorium, archive cafe and shop.

-          All of these areas are clad with a load-bearing facade of pigmented in-situ cast concrete.

-          The roof completes the unified look of the building, treated with a grey concrete application to complete the monolithic (formed of single large blocks of stone) form.

-          The gallery was designed to stand partially on the river facing a nearby weir and act as a flood defence.

-          The gallery has self compacting concrete perimeter walls, thick and strongly reinforced.

Lighting

-          David Chipperfield (architect) decided not to light all the rooms with daylight because for such a large museum, that would be quite complex.

-          He suggested that light was brought in from higher up in the room, where it would cause less damage to the artefacts.

-          Light was brought in through slots in the pitched ceilings of the galleries. This gives a sense of changing atmosphere.

-          The windows were used purely for the views.

Materials/Design