Featured at Materia’s ‘Concrete Candies‘ exhibition was Gravelli, a young brand focused on concrete design. Their products put concrete in a new light, as a practical and aesthetic material for use in every day products such as bowls, fine jewelry and furniture – in addition to its more commonly recognized applications in architecture and interior design.

When speaking of his love of concrete as a material, main Gravelli designer Tomáš Vacek has the following to say:
“Concrete is, in many ways, an extraordinary material with a strong character. I have exactly the same notion about the people, which are not afraid of accepting it. ”

Technology:

Two of the innovative types concretes Gravelli works widely with are FixCrete® and LiCrete®.

FixCrete is a high strength concrete used by Gravelli to produce tables with extremely thin surfaces that are just 15mm thick, but are at the same time incredibly strong. Products made with FixCrete are about 8x lighter than those produced with conventional concrete, making Gravelli concrete tables easy to move with just two people.

LiCrete is a newcomer among structural concrete materials. It is made of both concrete and a light transparent conductive material. It is available in different colours and shape variations and can be made with its own pattern. It has been used by Gravelli to create translucent walls, room dividers and partitions.

Surface resistance:

Regular concrete absorbs liquids very easily and it therefore can get dirty very fast. To improve the surface resistance of concrete, Gravelli products are treated with many impregnation layers that guarantee surface resistance against liquids and retain the natural appearance of concrete at the same time.

You can take a look at more of Gravelli’s concrete design works here.