Creative uses for Concrete

[Andrew Spiering]

This is a blog post from Landscape+Urbanism that I found on the Land8 Blogs page about creative uses for concrete. Do you have any creative uses for concrete?

[Lisa Town]

Here in Germany each state holds a Garden Show that is centered around some sort of new town planning effort. So instead of just flowers and gardening, it has a landscape architecture/planning element to it. I recently went to the show for the state of Bavaria, held in Neu Ulm. In addition to being centered around a new housing development, they showcased some new techniques including some cool new stuff involving concrete. The most impressive was the see-through concrete. While it wasn’t like glass, you could definitely see shadows on the other side of it, like a japanese screen. In fact, it had a very elegant quality to it like that of a screen. The pieces they displayed were rectangular panels held by cables and set in an opening, like that of putting a screen in a window. It had a nice quality, almost terrazzo-like. The key that holds the pieces together, and really what gives it such an elegant quality, is the woven threads in the panels. Although, at this moment they are hand woven so the price is ridiculous but the day they figure out how to do it more efficiently and the cost comes down, this could be very interesting indeed.

[Andrew Spiering]

Those images are awesome! Very elegant, indeed. And it does sound expensive… It would be interesting to get some details of that or specs on how it they are built. Maybe someone in the Lounge has a few ideas!?!

Lisa Town said:

Here in Germany each state holds a Garden Show that is centered around some sort of new town planning effort. So instead of just flowers and gardening, it has a landscape architecture/planning element to it. I recently went to the show for the state of Bavaria, held in Neu Ulm. In addition to being centered around a new housing development, they showcased some new techniques including some cool new stuff involving concrete. The most impressive was the see-through concrete. While it wasn’t like glass, you could definitely see shadows on the other side of it, like a japanese screen. In fact, it had a very elegant quality to it like that of a screen. The pieces they displayed were rectangular panels held by cables and set in an opening, like that of putting a screen in a window. It had a nice quality, almost terrazzo-like. The key that holds the pieces together, and really what gives it such an elegant quality, is the woven threads in the panels. Although, at this moment they are hand woven so the price is ridiculous but the day they figure out how to do it more efficiently and the cost comes down, this could be very interesting indeed.

[Lisa Town]

Actually, I got a book on the stuff but it’s all in German so I’m having a bit of a hard time deciphering the info. But as soon as I find something useful, like a website or something, I will post more!

[Author]

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