Take a traditional material, add cutting-edge technology with enhanced sustainability. Now you've got Bio Terrazzo.
Terrazzo flooring has been around since the Ancient Egyptians. The basic process - the suspension of particulates in a liquid medium which sets to a hard finish - has remained unchanged for centuries. There are very good reasons why terrazzo has stood the test of time - hard wearing, low maintenance, design flexibility - but environmental concerns are leading to a wider re-evaluation of its suitability.
Traditional cementitious and epoxy terrazzos are very high in carbon and the latter contains Bisphenol A (BPA) - a restricted substance - which is known to adversely affect neurological function and development. This has led to the development of new materials that replicate the benefits without the environmental downsides.
Bio Terrazzo
Bio Terrazzo is a combination of natural stone and a binding agent based on vegetable oils. This makes it a terrazzo floor that is free of all of the potentially harmful chemicals on the International Living Future’s Red List - including BPA - and in contrast to traditional terrazzo, it is virtually carbon neutral with a carbon footprint below 0.5 kg CO2e / M2.
Like traditional terrazzo, it is fully seamless with no expansion joints and it’s not prone to cracking. It’s a very long-life material - it should last 40 years or more in the most demanding of commercial spaces - which minimises its lifetime environmental impact and reduces lifecycle maintenance costs.
3D Printing - The Secret Sauce
Terrazzo has traditionally been a ‘workhorse’ kind of product - solid and reliable but not very exciting. There’s been a revolution in this most traditional of flooring methods by enhancing it with the most modern of technologies - robotic 3D printing.
Bio Terrazzo is a designer’s dream. The 3D printing process works to a singular specification. Patterns can be created, and replicated, from a freehand drawing or a generated design. So, the floor becomes a perfect design medium.
This allows architectural lines to be accentuated and the telling a visual story with innovative shapes and colours all in a seamless fashion. It is also very practical commercially, allowing the addition of bespoke branding or clarity to routing and wayfinding through large buildings.
And because terrazzo is mixed to order, the base colour and the size, shape and structure of the particles can be specified. So every terrazzo is individual.
