Creating & Blending Textures

Length - 03:16

Like in a lot of my work, both interior and, in this case, exterior, I like to blend an array of textures together to create an ambience or create a sensation or a feeling that you have an emotional connection with. And with concrete, obviously, there's an association and I never use concrete solely on its own. I try to mix it with other materials and textures. And if you look at this house, you'll see, texturally, there's a lot going on but it all kind of forms together, forms a composition that you can relate to because one texture doesn't dominate over another. It's just like in nature. You'll see so many different kinds of textures here, and what we have is a blending of that kind of aesthetic into a house.

Blending with natureSo, with smooth walls on one area, with board-form texture on another area, with the stucco in yet another area, you have already three different textures of one material, concrete. As you approach the house, one of the objectives I had was to create a sensation that the natural elements and the house elements really blended together. When you approach the entryway, and you see this streak of amber color in the walls, that was caused by me working in the formwork and putting in a cold joint, a deliberate cold joint with color and pebbles, during the pour itself and then pouring the rest of the concrete behind that and leaving that streak there. And that was very deliberate, that hopefully, in the future, it would fuse in a natural way with the landscape.

And now, you can see, with the creeping fig moving along the wall, how these two elements, one done, you know, four years ago in an abstract sense when a wall is being poured and here, you see this growth kind of creeping in and merging with it. This is really delightful to me in the sense of the composition it's forming on its own, kind of organically.

From countertops to floors, fireplaces, walls, you can see that anything is possible with concrete. You can start small and dream big.