Decorative Concrete Offers Beauty and Benefits
Architects and designers enjoy unlimited choices for aesthetic enhancement

Exqusite detailing spices up the esterior of Burdine's in Aventura, Fla. The precast panels manufactured by Coreslab and designed by architect Cooper Cary of Atlanta mad use of form liners from Scott System. Photo courtesy of Scott System.

There is a decorative concrete solution for almost every sustainable application, and new techniques are developing every day. Architects, designers and builders are limited only by their imagination.

Colored Concrete
To many people, the words “decorative concrete” are synonymous with “colored concrete.” Incorporating color is one of the easiest ways to create a unique concrete application. There are three main techniques for incorporating color: integration, staining and dry-shake color hardeners.

Adding pigments or coloring agents during the concrete mixing process creates integral color, which produces a consistent tone throughout the finished concrete. This technique has become very popular in recent years, says Jamie Farny, PCA’s program manager for masonry and special products. “Advances in computer controls help in mixing, creating consistent quality control in batching systems,” he says. To create diffuse and varied natural tones, many finishers apply one or more concrete stains, sometimes on top of colored concrete. Stains react with each concrete surface to create one-of-a-kind effects. To create more intense hues, dry-shake color hardeners often are applied to the surface of wet concrete to create an opaque color layer. This technique lends itself to creating eye-catching designs while increasing the durability of the finished surface.

White Cement
White cement concrete is ideally suited for creating dramatic surfaces. Made with white cement, sand and aggregates, this concrete offers a crisp, clean aesthetic. White cement concrete can also be infused with color to produce almost any color in the rainbow, or matched to materials of existing buildings when used in rehabilitation or expansion projects.

Floors placed with white cement concrete have a fresh, clean look, and are easy to maintain. They also offer a high degree of reflectivity, decreasing the need for artificial light fixtures and lowering energy costs for businesses. Click here for case study.

Exposed Aggregate and Other Textures
Incorporating textures is a cost-effective way to enhance concrete. Using any of a variety of methods, finishers remove the top layer of concrete paste, revealing the aggregate surfaces to create a natural aesthetic. The technique remains popular, Farny says, because it offers a wide range of textures and an unlimited color selection.

Decorative concrete finishers have a wide variety of other textures at their command, created with tools like brooms, trowels, rakes, sponges, rock salt—you name it, finishers are using it to devise innovative textures.Many companies offer stencils and stamps, which can be used to create an unlimited array of patterns and textures. Even more aesthetic options are created with saw cutting and scoring of hardened concrete.

Form Liners
Another method for creating decorative surfaces uses form liners, plastic or urethane molds that shape concrete inside formwork. Used in precast and cast-in-place applications, the liners can turn otherwise regular concrete into artistic masterpieces, while saving materials and costs through reuse.

With form liners, the possibilities are endless. For instance, Denver-based manufacturer Scott System offers standard textures like stone, wood and block; the company also has artistic forms depicting natural scenes, animals and industry. Dana Scott, director of marketing for Scott System, says the company’s most popular textures emulate natural stone surfaces. But its specialty is custom forms, created to the specifications of individual projects. Projects created with the company’s liners have won awards across the country.

Increased interest in the method has led to evolutions in liner materials, says Farny: “There are some form liners available today that, if properly taken care of, are almost indestructible.” In fact, Scott says their urethaneforms are guaranteed for 100 uses.

One of the newest evolutions in the technique is brick inlay systems, which use liners to cast thin (usually ½-in) bricks into the concrete surface. Using brick inlays, designers can create the appearance of traditional masonry even when constructing with precast or tilt-up panels.

Architectural Precast Panels

Precast by Stresscon of Colorado Springs, this panel incorporates of of scott System's most popular flagstone textures. Photo courtesy of Scott System.

Masonry
Concrete masonry units (CMUs) are another decorative option for designers. Like concrete, CMUs can help earn multiple points toward LEED Credits, and CMUs often incorporate recycled materials. But masonry’s real beauty is in its flexibility and variety: CMUs come in hundreds of styles and colors, and can be used to create dramatic effects for facades, landscaping and more. Colored mortars create an even greater variety of creative options.

Self-consolidating Concrete
One of the newest developments in decorative applications is the use of self-consolidating (or self-compacting) concrete (SCC). “Whether pigmented or left plain, it has a nice off-the-form finish that can be cost-effective due to savings in placing and finishing the concrete,” says Farny. The precast industry has embraced SCC because it reduces noise normally associated with consolidating concrete into forms, and achieveshighly consistent finish. Though it can be done in the field, SCC is especially suited for use in a controlled setting. And for more detailed work, the material performs well with intricate forms, flowing and consolidating under its own weight to fill small voids.

Reflective Floors Light Up Supermarket Chain WinCo Foods uses concrete floors with white cement to increase daylighting, durability On the West Coast, a supermarket chain known for value, innovation and creating upscale shopping experiences is raising the bar even higher by making its stores more sustainable. Boise, Idaho-based WinCo Foods is installing concrete floors made with white cement in all of its new locations, almost 20 in all by the end of 2004. Reflective concrete floors are created by using white cement, and white fine and coarse aggregates. The reflective floors bounce light from both artificial and natural sources, reducing the number of necessary light fixtures—and the energy used to power them. In many of the WinCo stores, a skylight system increases natural illumination, further reducing lighting costs and creating a warm atmosphere. The result is a clean aesthetic, one that customers are drawn to. Made with white cement concrete for Lehigh Cement Co. (Allentown, Pa.) floors in this WinCo supermarket provide a fresh, clean aesthetic, and lower energy costs by increasing reflectivity. Photo by King Studios, Boise, Idaho. That’s important for the company, whose stores must be warehouse-like in design to accommodate bulk items, but also inviting to customers seeking out high-end products. “They work very hard to overcome a warehouse feeling,” says Larry Rowland, LEED-AP and technical sales representative for Lehigh White Cement. The combination of daylighting and glossy, clean floors “creates a fresh, welcoming experience” for the customer, he says. The floors also are durable enough to support the weight of small forklifts, which load stock onto shelves at night. Rowland says the store cuts costs by not using traditional linoleum floor coverings, which would have to be replaced frequently. “This is a very green building technique. You’re not putting another product on top of that concrete; you’re not harvesting more materials and using adhesives,” he says. “These are 30-, 40-, even 100-year floors,” Rowland continues. “Over a long period of time, they can go back, grind and polish them, and they will look like terrazzo. They’re going to look as pretty as they did on the day they opened the stores.”

 
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