Matter and surface
Terrazzo
school hospital housing public building airport
A floor or cladding of small pieces of marble, stone or glass mixed with cement or resin, polished to a smooth, continuous surface.
What it solves
It is durable, easy to clean and cool underfoot, useful in schools, hospitals and homes in the tropics. It makes it possible to use leftover stone and glass.
Today
Divide it with metal or plastic strips into panels that control cracking and choose local or recycled aggregates. Outdoors use a cement matrix, because resin loses color in the sun.
Common mistake
Pouring very large panels without joints, which end up cracked.
Tomorrow
Tiles are already made with bottle glass, rubble and ceramic waste, turning waste into flooring. Digital cutting of the strips allows complex designs with less waste.
Fact Epoxy resin terrazzo is laid 6 to 9.5 mm thick and is only suitable indoors.
Where it comes from
- 1Neolithic Anatolia Çayönü, Turkey, around 9000 to 8000 BC
About 90 m² of lime and clay floors, dyed with ochre and polished, which archaeologists call terrazzo, have been excavated. - 2Venetian craftsmen Venice, Italy, 18th century
The Venetian floor set marble fragments in a bed of mortar, and craftsmen from Friuli carried it across Italy and Europe. - 3Construction industry United States, 1920s
The electric grinder made terrazzo cheaper, and in 1924 divider strips appeared that allow it to expand without cracking.
See also
Also in Matter and surface
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.