BlingCrete™ at Material Vision

Material Vision – the trade fair revolving around the subject of materials for product development, design and architecture – is a platform for the professional dialogue between the materials industry and the creative sector. “With a special joint stand, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und...

Changing from a passive…

The BlingCrete™ surface is activated depending on the position of surface, light source, and recipient. The reflective effect can be perceived at a certain moment. The concrete changes from a passive to an active state, so to speak. It is not important whether the source is daylight…

…to an active state

…or artificial light positioned in a targeted way. Even several light sources with different colors and positions can be oriented to the surface in the space. BlingCrete allows to transform any ordinary space into a highly immersive or interactive environment by lowtech analogue modes. Despite their flatness, the two-dimensional surfaces...

BlingCrete™ anthracite + tight grid

//Name: BlingCrete™ / Characteristics: “Tight grid” (retroreflective) / Matrix: High performance or ultra high performance concrete / Matrix colour: Anthracite / Sizes of glass beads: 3 mm (alkali resistent) / Surface layout: Tight Grid / Element shapes: Plane, angular or rounded (concave /convex)

BlingCrete™ green + random

//Name: BlingCrete™ / Characteristics: “Snake skin” (retroreflective) / Matrix: High performance or ultra high performance concrete / Matrix colour: Green / Sizes of glass beads: 2 mm (alkali resistent) / Surface layout: Random distribution, monomodal / Element shapes: Plane, angular or rounded (concave /convex)

BlingCrete™ black + tight grid

//Name: BlingCrete™ / Characteristics: “Black grid” (retroreflective) / Matrix: High performance or ultra high performance concrete / Matrix colour: Anthracite (i. e. black) / Sizes of glass beads: 3 mm (alkali resistent) / Surface layout: Grid / Element shapes: Plane, angular or rounded (concave /convex)

There is not one BlingCrete™, but several

BlingCrete™ offers high design potential, that derives from the production process. Basically, the building process and use are comparable to known procedural manners of prefabricated elements. Part of BlingCrete™ are novel High Performance and Ultra High Performance Concretes that are used: With these the adhesive composition of the glass beads...

Light Reflecting Concrete

On the level of materials science research, BlingCrete™ represents a new genre of materials with its own logic of effect that cannot be described simply in terms of the usual categories of heavy and light or form, construction, and surface. The material, also known as light-reflecting concrete, combines the positive characteristics of concrete (fire safety, solidity, building methods) with those of retroreflection. Retroreflecting surfaces send incoming rays of light (sunlight or artificial light) back precisely in the direction of the source of light. This optical phenomenon is produced by embedding glass microspheres in the substrate material. BlingCrete™ creates immersive environments by lowtech analogue modes.