Terrific terrazzo: Why 'speckled' concrete suits so many surfaces
Terrazzo sink from the Holm collection by Kast Concrete Basins in London.
Neverout of interiors style, terrazzo is having one long and welcome moment. Dermot Bannon himself has terrazzo flooring in his own dream home, in muted dark tones, and therein lies the beauty of terrazzo — amongst many other attributes, it is incredibly versatile. It can be light, dark, colourful, monochrome, chunky, small-patterened, dramatic, or muted. It is hard to think of a design scheme that wouldn’t benefit from a hit of terrazzo, such is its protean nature.
Terrazzo, if you don’t know, is what you’re looking at when you see a “speckled” concrete. It is an aggregate material, a soup of chips mixed into composite (usually concrete but sometimes epoxy resin), poured and polished to reveal unique shapes and colours. Those chips can be marble, granite, glass, pebbles, quartz, and more.
As these materials come in an endless variety of colours, so too does terrazzo, and the composite they are set in can similarly be light, dark, or dyed purple if that’s your thing. In addition to its chameleon aesthetics, terrazzo is inherently durable, works great with underfloor heating, and can be used on a wide variety of surfaces. In summary, aside from being a little pricey, it’s the perfect material. Here’s how to use it in your home.
A vast expanse of terrazzo on your floors is the dream for many, achieved only by a few because it is the most expensive option and it’s hard to find specialists to do it. This is because it’s expensive for a good reason. It takes skill, patience, and experience to get terrazzo right. Your first step is to choose your finish —this is the colours and materials that make up your aggregate. You may choose sandy neutrals, Connemara marble greens, or a rainbow of brightness — almost anything is possible, so choose carefully to suit your design scheme. Consider too the colour of the composite — concrete is not concrete, it can be light or dark or anywhere in between, so be specific.
Once that’s decided, it all gets mixed up and poured onto your substrate. Then the really difficult part begins — polishing. Your terrazzo expert will spend painstaking hours polishing your floor not just to the right shine, but to the right depth to reveal your desired terrazzo pattern. Each round of polishing will change the shape and size of the polished chips in your terrazzo, and precision is required to get it the way you want it. The work is priced accordingly, and worth it in my opinion.
The only potential downside to a unified poured terrazzo floor is in the unlikely event of that floor cracking. Terrazzo is remarkably sturdy, so it would take dropping an anvil or some serious subsidence, but such things happen and fixing it really requires ripping it up and starting again. Your alternative is to embrace the Japanese art of kintsugi — embrace the crack, enhance it with a gold filler, and learn to find beauty in the imperfection.
A less expensive option is to have terrazzo slabs assembled offsite and installed in your home. Creating terrazzo slabs offsite in a manufacturing facility is much easier and less expensive than bringing in a team to pour and polish your floors. The trade off is that you will have some seams between the slabs, but if you have someone skilled installing them and are careful in your choice of grout colour then they can fade almost to invisibility. It’s an excellent alternative.
An even more affordable option is to forego the seamless look altogether and opt for tiles. Terrazzo tiles are magnificent on any surface — I have them covering half of my downstairs bathroom in a wild multicoloured chunky pattern from The Mosaic Factory, in the style of Max Lamb’s iconic marmoleoum creations. I also have them covering a bench seat in my garden, and they have held up well although they are not designed for outdoor use and have faded slightly with use (I don’t mind, terrazzo is not about perfection).
When buying terrazzo tiles, it is better to go for true terrazzo — that is cement tiles with the polished aggregate, as opposed to tiles with a terrazzo pattern printed on. The terrazzo print is very hard to get right and lacks the depth and texture of terrazzo — much of the beauty lies in the varied optical properties of the materials making up the aggregate, such as translucent quartz and striated marble.
Beyond floors and walls, terrazzo can be used pretty much anywhere. With such a huge resurgence in popularity in Ireland in the past decade or so, the creation of terrazzo household accessories has exploded. Terrazzo countertops, to my delight, have become a popular kitchen focal point. I couldn’t love them more.
These are typically made using preformed slabs, just like flooring, and their durability makes them perfect for heavy duty usage. If you haven’t yet seen them in someone’s home you will likely spot them in trendy cafes or restaurants.
While concrete or sometimes epoxy resin is the most frequently used composite material when creating large surface terrazzo coverings, the method of creating terrazzo can be leveraged with any material that can be polished or cut smooth.
Creators have been using clay, resin, and even rubber to make trays, mugs, utensils, sinks, accent tables, and really anything you can think of. I have even seen one beautiful terrazzo cake, made by mixing broken pieces of coloured chocolate with a liquid ganache! If all this is making you feel a spark of creative flair, you can buy yourself a terrazzo kit and have fun making your own creations.
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