Small details such as this adds such a great oomph to any environment. You may not notice on a conscious level, but your subconscious picks up on it and most likely puts any place that pays attention to detail in your memory as one the specials.
Remember when sparkly concrete was the norm? I am sure this decision to not use sparkles any more was made to reduce "costs" but there is a "cost" to everything. By saving a little bit of money short term, the long-term implications are huge. Concrete poured 40 years ago with no sparkles is still there. And it doesn’t sparkle.
I recently came upon this great product to add to concrete. It adds sparkles to reflect and dance in the light. It makes the place interactive because as you move, the light reflection moves. And it is functional as well – it aids with slip resistance.
Function and beauty – it doesn’t get any better than that!
Check out www.sparklegrain.com
1 comment:
Thanks. This reminds me of a 1970’s childhood family drive to an Atlantic beach during which the highway itself began to sparkle! Dad explained that the asphalt was partly made of recycled glass from discarded cola bottles and the like. It seemed like such a brilliant win-win use of material otherwise to be wasted in landfills or left littering the roadsides. This experience is greatly responsible for my development into a pro-environmental idea resource and religious recycler at home and work.
The reflective light is an example of what I began referring to in design school as a “tactile-visual” effect. Such textures were then so often cleansed from the prevailing “economodern” style of less-is-more graphic design. Fortunately, technology has now made such interesting textural effects affordable.
Jeffrey Reser
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