Architects and interior designers have always had a love and respect for concrete, despite its dull appearance it has a very unique industrial aesthetic quality making it ideal for minimalist environments, loft-style spaces, or even restaurants and offices.  This extremely adaptable material creates simple, yet conspicuous design, it wears well, and like denim, never goes out of fashion.  Recently concrete has been grabbing the attention of product designers and developments in the material allow for greater capability of design.  We’ve found a few development s in the material which illustrate its creative and ecological capabilities.

Fibre reinforced concrete

German Designer Tim Mackerodt designed and built a lamp and a stool from folded concrete. The objects which he calls the FALT. series are made from thin sheets of fibre reinforced concrete from the company g.tecz. The material is rolled out and folded on flexible moulds. Using this method, concrete can produce shapes that would not be possible using traditional casting methods. The lamps walls are only 2.77mm think making it deceivingly lightweight.

Carbon negative concrete

The concrete industry currently accounts for up to 5% of worldwide CO2 emissions, it is the second most consumed substance on the planet following water. So the search for carbon neutral building materials is at an all time high.  Novacem have developed a new cement based on magnesium oxide replacing the calcium carbonates used in traditional production methods. Production of this new building material is not just carbon neutral but carbon negative, it absorbs Carbon dioxide rather than emitting it.

Light transmitting concrete

Designed by Hungarian Aron Losonczi, Litracon is a mysterious and dramatic material comprised of optical glass fibres and fine concrete.  The thousands of glass fibres lead light parallel to one another between the two surfaces of the block:  in this way light and shadow can pass through it giving it a translucent effect.  Backlighting litracon gives a moody glow and day lighting behind any object gives a ghostly silhouette.

Industrial designers are having a go at using the concrete too. The Espresso Solo by designer Shmuel Linski is a conceptual product featuring metal working parts and a concrete case and London designer Magnus Pettersen has designed a series of products called Solid – Desk Accessories. The set consists of 3 concrete products which are hand cast in small batches.