A commercial project with creative twists.

I was impressed right away with Sallie Crutcher Cowan of Design Source, Forest City, NC.
She has that economical sense of design (throw creativity, not money, at the problem!) and the high energy to get a project done.
Sallie also has the natural artistic curiosity and patience to resolve creative challenges with novel solutions.

We decided to do an unusual concrete mix, where the aggregate content of mix (ordinarily gravel) would be replaced by broken safety glass cubes.
We thought this would create a modern/slick looking set of counters for the showroom she was designing for Cowan Tire’s brand new Rutherfordton, NC location.
Hunt and Sallie Cowan’s new tire store and car service, is a slick, multi-bay, ultra outfitted concern, seemingly more at home pitting Indy cars than changing the oil in Uncle Joe’s clunker.
But Sallie and Hunt are down to earth, with a real interest in recycling, an intense passion for vintage car racing, (and a keen sense of good BBQ!).
They even have a space heater that keeps their entire shop toasty in winter, that runs off used motor oil, with almost no emissions.
The shop may be the slickest thing on highway 221, but I’m sure the service will be very down home friendly.

The concrete counters were going to be big on colored and clear glass, with mirror and stainless steel parts thrown in, all polished to a baby smooth feel.
We were looking for wow factor, to quote Sallie, she wanted “more cowbell” that you can’t often find in straight up polished concrete.
I ended up making 260 pounds of recycled shower and sliding door safety glass for our aggregate content courtesy of Habit for Humanity. I broke the glass windows with a steel petanque ball sometimes having to throw the ball hard, many times before it shattered… safety glass is tough stuff!

We also added 50 pounds of cobalt blue glass made from crushing blue wine bottles with a 8 pound tamper.
No, I did not drink all of this German Liebfraumilch…
We found out that the recycling centers here in Asheville do not recycle blue glass.
Apparently it “poisons” the clear, brown, and green glass colors, and has to be hand separated out.

Sallie and I labored over the seeding process as the call was always “more cowbell”.
We cut cobalt blue glass and canary yellow panes found at a local stained glass supply shop into dramatic larger shards.
We added hidden treasures, coins and surprises.
Hunt provided us with stainless steel bits and bobs from his car spare part inventory, to further spice up the tops, sprockets, washers, and bearing races.
There were twenty four man hours in the mold seeding alone.
Many elements of the seeding had to be glued onto the mold one by one.
Here is what the seeded forms looked like prior to pouring the concrete.

Here is a picture of the molds poured with concrete.
We used white portland cement, white sand, and titanium white colorant to get… white concrete!
The curved leading edge of the mold was a nice challenge.
Multiple laminations of thin plywood provided the flexibility to follow the curve, and the strength to contain several hundred pounds of concrete.
The counters were basically two mirroring “wing” shapes in four sections, all totaling about 750 pounds of concrete.

Here is a picture of a slab section after polishing… aggregate exposed.
I’ve been looking for a way to describe the effect of glass aggregate replacing the stone/gravel.
I guess the assumption is that concrete usually looks heavy and clunky.
The white portland cement base and transparent aggregates, make these slabs have a inorganic/synthetic feel without being fake, cold, or plasticky.
The largeness and drama of the glass shards put distance between this concrete and a “terrazzo” look.
I keep coming back to “modern” in a “space age” kind of way.
The photos do not adequately convey this feel.

Here are pictures of the final product, installed at the construction site.
I will be taking more pictures when the showroom is completed… to give you the full impact of the tops in context.

Please check the Slab-Fab-Studio Flickr gallery to the right of this page for larger images.