Graphic Concrete, a Finnish company manufacturing and marketing graphic concrete, has entered the Middle East market to offer an innovative approach to designing prefabricated concrete surfaces.

Together with its Dubai-based partner Versatile, a business development company, Graphic Concrete aims to create inspirational environments through impressions on concrete surfaces.
 
The patented technology invented by interior architect Samuli Naamanka is an industrial product for large-scale surfaces and a tool which will enable architects to be more visually creative, said the company.

“Graphic concrete allows designers and architects to design attractive and durable patterns and images to prefabricated concrete surfaces such as facades, walls and pavement slabs,” explained Graphic Concrete CEO Harri Lanning.

“Our end product is a membrane used in the prefabrication process of concrete,” he said.

Graphic Concrete offers four main product lines with a range of design options. GCCollection presents the company’s own range of design patterns; GCPro allows designers to create their own repeating patterns; GCArt&Design allows designers to produce unique images; and GCSmooth is used for producing a fair-face finish.

Explaining the process, Lanning said, the desired image is printed on the membrane with a surface retarder, after which the membrane is sent to the local concrete prefabrication company. Concrete is cast on the membrane and when the retarder is washed away, the image is revealed. The image results from the contrast between the fair-face and the exposed aggregate surface.

“Being a standardised part of the prefabrication industry, graphic concrete is easy to use. The solution is also cost effective, as the surface is ready as such and requires no more cladding,” he said.
Since the founding of Graphic Concrete in 2002, the graphic concrete solution has been used in more than 600 projects in 25 countries around the world.

The extensive list of references demonstrates the vast range of designs in which architects can use graphic concrete: public, residential, industrial and infrastructure, Lanning said. –TradeArabia News Service