Vertical & Carved Concrete

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.

An Australian company that specializes in polished concrete and seamless flooring and wall solutions, Honestone, recently completed restoration to give the church new life. The church, which has been affectionally called “Barneys,” enjoyed flooring, a renewed altar area, stairs and a stunning curved wall by Honestone.

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.

I’ve always been curious why certain decorative systems and finishes take hold only in certain regions of the country, while others are universal in their appeal and demand. The answer lies somewhere between perception, demand and what the market is offering.

While hand-mudding vertical concrete projects is the preferred method for getting a working surface ready to be shaped and carved, for bigger jobs it’s not necessarily efficient.

Enter a spray system.

East Coast met West Coast and “old school” joined up with state-of-the-art hardscape concrete work at an award-winning residential project in Andover, Mass. The three-level backyard spread, including patio, pool, fire pit and surrounding walls, earned project owner New England Hardscapes, of Acton, Mass., an ASCC design award.

Beginning painters get so excited by the smorgasbord of shapes, colors and textures they have been learning that they often try to put every trick they know into each of their paintings. This leads to a hodge-podge with no focus.

While swimming pools and road construction projects have been the mainstay of many contractors in the shotcrete industry, a number of shotcrete artists are taking the concrete medium to new levels of creativity and usefulness.

Check in and check out three examples of decorative concrete at its finest, in Georgia, Tennessee and California.

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.

David Seils’ master craft, wall relief sculpture, is an art form that dates back to ancient times, when civilizations carved designs into stone walls, buildings and columns. But instead of chiseling away material, the Asheville, N.C.-based Seils builds up his wall sculptures in layers using mortar, a mason’s hawk and a trowel.

CTS Cement Manufacturing Corp. sent us a story about an enormous waterscape at Cypress Breeze Plantation, a private gated development in north Florida. The job was done by Muud Concrete Design (Multiple Use Unlimited Design), a Los Angeles outfit formed by artisans Adrian Gascon and Neil Hughes.

Vertical Artisans, launched in January 2008 at Verticalartisans. com, presents training videos and articles by experts. The site aims to offer a broader perspective than can be found at schools or training centers that, besides being bound by the limits of time and space, are often devoted to one manufacturer’s product line or one artisan’s techniques.

Decorative shotcrete is catching on, and as with any decorative concrete technique, there’s a learning curve. Here, we cover mix design, prep work and more.

In the heart of northern Michigan wine country near Traverse City, Mari Vineyards opened for business in May 2016. The 31,000-square-foot facility was equipped with the usual amenities of a first-rate winery as well as an extensive underground barrel-aging area that has the qualities of a cave.

Most cellars consist of pretty straightforward temperature control and wine-racking systems but Nathan Giffin, owner of Creative Rock Forming and the creative powerhouse behind a recent wine cellar project in Naperville, Ill., has rather a different idea of what a private wine cellar can be.

If you apply vertical concrete, carve concrete walls or create cast pieces, sooner or later you may have to face a painful truth: Traditional metal lath can be troublesome.

Ellie Ellis of Elite Artistry LLC in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Eva Gallant of Y-Knot Creations LLC in Hurst, Texas, share a bond stronger than the one-ton concrete art piece they produced together in Indianapolis at the Concrete Decor Show.

Even on the thumb tip of northwest Washington state, decorative concrete is making its mark, thanks to this father-son outfit.

A visually striking public art project near the University of Simon Fraser in Vancouver, British Columbia, was the result of science and engineering intersecting, orchestrated by a concrete artisan who was skilled enough to make it happen.

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.

Owners of commercial and retail establishments are discovering the benefits of beautiful, easy-to-clean concrete walls.