Vertical & Carved Concrete

Everything about the Brawl in the Fall at the 2016 Concrete Decor Show in San Diego was hot, hot, hot— from the record-breaking 100+ degree heat to the sizzling entries that shaped up in the outside lot during show time.

As for Hileman’s original vision of using actual coco logs in construction, remember “termites” and realize it is nice to fool Mother Nature — and human guests — in the name of maintenance.

Glass-fiber reinforced concrete and other materials can be molded to make rock structures so natural-looking, even Mother Nature will be fooled.

Structurally unbeatable, decorative forms and form-liners are creating a timely and profitable advantage on more and more jobsites, big and small.

Exposed aggregate finishes are in demand on concrete walls. How do you get that rock to pop? One way is to use a surface retarder.

A job that began with a mere 80 square feet of overlay snowballed into a decorative concrete transformation — complete with faux hollow tree — for this restaurant and bar.

What’s old often becomes new again, and in the case of ICF (insulated concrete forms) construction, many people feel it’s not only ready for a rebirth but a healthy adolescence, as well.

As demand for vertical concrete work in the residential sector expands, more decorative concrete contractors and artisans are taking on vertical projects with the goal of achieving creative looks.

Adrian Gascon has reinvented himself personally and professionally a few times. He sold cars and played and coached baseball and basketball, then through luck and hard work began fabricating top-secret planes for the government, making $20 an hour at 20 years old.

Rich Verdone is an Army Ranger veteran with five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his devotion to duty and his fellow soldiers marches on here at home. He’s now on a mission to build a construction company on a foundation of the skills and dedication of U.S. military veterans.

With a passion for art and a love of sculpting, painting and pottery, Joshua Annis had the opportunity of a lifetime presented to him at a young age and at a time when he had no direction in his life and then along came concrete.

Florida’s Miami Beach is a part of the country known for its high real estate prices, but the penthouse condominium sales price of $60 million for the Faena House Saxony Condo set a new high.

Being in the construction industry his whole life, Dion Battles made the unsurprising leap to decorative concrete, specifically the vertical carving and theming part of the industry, after the nationwide recession hit the residential building industry hard in 2007.

When Brian Graham opened Hard Rock Developments Inc. in Calgary in 2000, he wanted the concrete tool and supply shop to be different from your standard concrete store. “My Dad was a concrete contractor, so when I was growing up, I went with him to concrete supply stores pretty often,” he says. anyone, including a concrete contractor.”

When a city, school or government chooses to spend a little extra money on decorative concrete, it demonstrates civic pride — and makes that lobby, city pool or roadside a little easier on the eyes.

Some things get better the second time around. Take the Navy Corpsmen Memorial at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, for instance. Back in 1983, Raul Avina, an Oceanside resident and local artist who as a young Marine was wounded in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.

With initial experience as a concrete contractor, ironworker and plasterer, an artistic streak found ready expression using skills that were learned in the trades.

The primary design focus of the five year renovation of the J. Paul Getty Museum was to modernize the existing museum, which is a replica of a Roman villa buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and breath new life using decorative concrete.

In the world of theming, epoxy is still an underutilized tool for creating levels of detail and realism second to none. For example, Polygem Inc. has spent years developing its 307 series of epoxy among others that are custom-formulated for this exact type of work.

Whether you're working on a decorative wall in a backyard or the exterior walls of a 15-story building, consider stencils for vertical surfaces.

When taking on pervious paving contracts, the San Diego-based contractor’s mix design is typically accepted by clients following mock-up, as custom blends can significantly increase a project’s difficulty. Yet, there are always exceptions, with the most recent being the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

These murals are the work of David Seils, an Asheville, N.C.-based designer, artist and relief sculptor. He applies an overlay to the walls to create these intricate, one-of-a-kind pieces.