Happy Earth Day!

Tomorrow is Earth Day! Colorado Hardscapes began its Earth Day rememberance today at Lakewood's Down To Earth Expo at the Lakewood Civic Center Plaza. There we displayed with the CRMCA (Colorado Redi-Mix Concrete Association) showing off our latest in "green" concrete, including Drainscape® Porous Concrete, Drainscape® Slotted Concrete, and Grasscrete®.

Enjoy earth day, the beautiful Colorado weather and continue to build and design with the best interest of society and our planet in mind.

Continuing to be an Award Winning Concrete Company!

On February 23rd, Bomanite announced the annual Bomanite award winners. 


Colorado Hardscapes walked away with another Gold Award for the Best Exposed Aggregate Systems Project for a private residence.

Planning for the landscape and pool project at this Castle Pines residence included early meetings at Colorado Hardscapes’ Design Center with Courtney McRickard, the landscape designer.  Colors, textures, and different applications were discussed, sampled, reviewed all the while keeping the costs of each option in tune with the overall budget.

Final selections included the use of natural stone paving and cast-in-place concrete – both vertical and horizontal.  Landscape walls, pool coping, cast-in-place patio stones, and the fireplace hearth all were placed with a Sandscape Texture™ finish, utilizing a specialty integral color, a light buff color, achieved by utilizing titanium dioxide in the concrete mix.

The fireplace hearth was finished by grinding and polishing the concrete to a glass-like finish, making a very smooth hearth and/or bench.

The patio area with the cast-in-place patio stones of varying sizes was cast on a level plane with a sub-surface drainage system designed to quickly move any water away from the house and its foundation.  Small Mexican beach pebbles filled the gaps between the patio sections.

The colors and textures of the concrete worked well with both the hard and soft surfaces of the overall landscape theme to create an outstanding project.

The landscape architect on this project is Three Sixty Design and the photographer is Michael Peck.

ACE Awards!

Colorado Hardscapes proudly took home an ACE Award and the People's Choice Award from this year's ACE Awards for Mordecai Children's Garden at Denver Botanic. In all the project took home 4 awards! Congratulations GH Phipps, Denver Botanic Gardens, and Mundus Bishop!

Urban Splash Park

Barnum Park at 370 Hooker St. experienced a welcome renovation during 2010 thanks to a $1.2 million City of Denver bond project. In addition to improving two existing pools, a non-functioning pool was replaced with an interactive Splash Pad. Colorado Hardscapes worked closely with the architectural firm of BHA to bring life and vitality to this venerable neighborhood park.

 

This urban Splash Pad has interactive water play features, such as a slide, buckets and spray guns and is divided into two areas – one for 2-5 year olds and one for 5-12 year olds. The gray broom-finish splash pads are enhanced by bright red, green, and blue Ultra Tuff Coatings and incorporate three different wet/dry finishes. This variety of finishes and the active water features warmly and playfully invite the children into the area.

Due to vandalism on the site early on in the renovation, the work crews needed to perform at an accelerated pace to meet a delayed deadline. This tight schedule coupled with tight quarters and the complications of fitting new equipment with existing utilities added to the challenges that Colorado Hardscapes met with the expertise they are known for. While initially scheduled to open at the beginning of the summer season, the crews were able to complete their work by mid-summer for a July 29 opening. This allowed the residents to enjoy the facility for a month in 2010 and to look forward to a full season in 2011.

Mordecai Children's Garden Grand Opening

It was a beautiful cool Colorado morning at today's ribbon cutting ceremony introducing the new Mordecai Children's Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens. The Colorado Children's Choral led the festivities in joyful song, Olivia met Digger the Marmot mascot, and Janet Mordecai shared her appreciation to everyone involved.

Janet Mordecai sharing her appreciation

Olivia announcing "Digger's" new name

CEO Bryan Vogt thanked everyone involved as well.

Here is a short video clip of Bryan thanking all of the subcontractors involved on this project:

Sculpted rock mountain atop parking structure

Colorado Hardscapes is proud of their sculpted shotcrete work at Marmot Mountain and Pika Peak. Complete with exposed aggregate colored concrete, an artificial tree, a split and polished boulder and artificial tree stump tables and chairs. Pika Peak was constructed over the parking deck structure so is built on a foam structure due to weight constraints. It was a great team of Mundus Bishop, GH Phipps, di Giacomo and Colorado Hardscapes working together. It turned out spectacular and is a project that everyone involved should be proud of. As Roger with GH Phipps put it, "This is one for the resume".

Children's Choral on the Bridge between Marmot Mountain and Pika Peak

Cave at Marmot Mountain

Pika Peak

Concrete tree stump tables and chairs

Marmot Mountain

Split and polished boulder at Marmot Mountain

Marmot Mountain through the Mistery Forest

Attractive Pervious Concrete –Oxymoron or Reality?

Pervious concrete – porous yet strong concrete that allows water to soak through – has been around for a long time. In most applications its utilitarian appeal usually trumps any aesthetic appeal. However, to trained eyes in the decorative concrete industry the puffed rice cereal look is not only ugly, but the rough surface makes it difficult to walk on, especially in high heels or barefeet.

Colorado Hardscapes appreciates the benefits, including the LEED requirements, of pervious concrete. We also strive for innovation in concrete. In an attempt to offer LEED and other sustainable projects something more elegant than dressing up pervious concrete with integral or topical color, something that would add curb appeal along with the benefits of free-draining paving, our research and development department has been tinkering with a few solutions. While these solutions are still in the R & D stage, they offer a lot of promise to marry the aesthetics with the practical.

The one we are most excited about is shown to the right. Using Colorado Hardscapes’ Navajo White Sandscape Texture™ and a series of precise sawcuts an aesthetically unique and functional pervious surface was created. The benefits? The high-class finish of Sandscape Texture™, a pervious surface that drains at a similar rate to the traditional pervious concrete, and the SRI value of the Navajo White color (tested at an SRI of 60)! This type of application is a system that can apply regardless of the selected color and texture, so suddenly the choices become almost endless. Can you hear the LEED points racking up?

To see this sample in action, visit our Design Center at 8085 E. Harvard Ave., Denver, CO 80231. For more information about pervious concrete, either traditional or this technique, contact Karen Van Heukelem at kvanheukelem@coloradohardscapes.com or John Buteyn at jbuteyn@coloradohardscapes.com or 303-750-8200.

Spring Patio Party

Despite the snow and rain, our Spring Party at Colorado Hardscapes was a success on May 13th! The Design Center was bustling with activity while dicussions of water features, flooring, pervious paving, di Giacomo rockscapes, Sandscape Texture, glow in the dark concrete, Lithocrete, and Bomanite were being had.

We had a great turn out of Landscape Architects, Owners, General Contractors and Architects. Following the educational tour, we enjoyed Purple Avacado Catering, beverages, and great networking.

Rock artisan Philip di Giacomo even flew in from California from the event.