Utilitarian, ubiquitous, and undoubtedly robust, concrete serves as a sleek, stalwart design element and is the most used manmade material on earth. Its usage worldwide, ton for ton, is twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminum combined. The versatile material is irresistibly sleek and sturdy with a surprisingly stylish…
Photography Courtesy of Shutterstock More than 500 years ago, Venetian builders in the Friuli region invented terrazzo in order to make use of marble remnants left over from posher projects. Drawing on ancient marble mosaic styles, these tradesmen began to set irregular fragments of discarded stone into clay to build…
Photography Courtesy of Shutterstock In 2015, the United States construction and demolition industry generated 169 million tons of debris from buildings, more than half of which ended up in landfills. That’s 169 million tons of concrete, wood, wallboard, shingles, brick and clay tiles, and steel that could be reused or…
Photography Courtesy of Ann Sacks Boasting bold patterns that appear inlaid, encaustic tiles are made using multiple colors of clay through methods first conceived centuries ago. “The encaustic tile represents a part of history in the design world,” says Erica Puccio of TileBar. “The combination of multiple color patterns is…
Carbon is often referenced in relation to climate change—it’s a buzzword that appears on news alerts about rising temperatures, carbon taxes, and energy plans. Carbon has come to be shorthand for carbon dioxide (CO2), a colorless, odorless gas that is released into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels like…
