(view originial article as pdf)
Landscape and Hardscape Construction
By: Jenan Jones Benson
In April, a 1,600-square-foot outdoor mural was installed at National Harbor, a new mixed-use development in Prince George’s County, MD. The mural depicts a history of the Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C. area. It was constructed by Creative Form Liners, Inc. using a concrete medium called FOTERA.
Creative Form Liners supplies fiberglass and elastomeric rubber form liners, concrete pavers and stamps to departments of transportation, engineering firms, architectural companies and concrete contractors across the country.
The company’s form liners offer deep relief and intricate detail. They are fabricated using normal construction methods and are easily integrated into the typical casting process. Standard and custom designed liners are available. Designs such as simulated stone patterns and fractured fins put an aesthetic touch on walls of many types. The company’s product lines also include custom concrete pavers and stamps.
What is FOTERA?
Steven Weitzman, owner and chief executive officer, developed FOTERA in 1988. A painter and sculptor, Weitzman envisioned a medium that blended the best of his art forms. FOTERA is a material that allows casting of color in solid structural concrete.
“We can actually paint with concrete,” says Jim Handy, the company’s marketing director. “Not paint on concrete, but paint with concrete.”
Today, there is greater interest in beautifying the nation’s streets and highways, expanding opportunities for FOTERA. For instance, FOTERA can be used to create roadway bridges with designs, patterns or pictures.
Creative Form Liners partners with another Weitzman company, Creative Design Resolutions, to design and fabricate aesthetic components. Designs can be placed indoors or outside.
Manufacturing process
The company consults with clients to develop a design, working from the client’s ideas, sketches and/or photographs. Text and logos can also be reproduced. The precast structural concrete is manufactured in Creative Form Liners’ studio using a proprietary process.
The revolutionary medium is created with cement, water, pigment and aggregate or recycled glass, but that is where the similarities with standard concrete end. Although Handy can’t divulge the secret behind the patent-pending process, he did say that thinking of working with separate batches of concrete for different colors is one way to visualize it. That’s unlikely to be a literal understanding because the studio can produce portraits of people complete with the myriad tones and hues found on faces. The process eliminates the need for metal or plastic for color separation and opens the door to greater creativity. Standard concrete can be painted, stamped or adorned with decals or stencils. FOTERA, with its ability to achieve subtle color blending or complete color separation, has the properties that fine artists demand.
“FOTERA wears like concrete and will last for generations with no color fading,” Handy says.
Standard colored concrete must be kept in a controlled climate, which limits the applications of the medium. To battle that obstacle, Creative Form Liners casts pigmented concrete color against color, avoiding the use of concrete metal edging that tends to expand and contract depending on climate and varying weather conditions. Because 100 percent reinforced structural concrete is used, there is minimal risk of cracking.
Since the fabrication process incorporates recycled materials, such as glass, the use of FOTERA can help projects earn LEED credits for green and sustainable design.
National Harbor mural
National Harbor (www.nationalharbor.com) is a 300-acre waterfront project developed by the Peterson Companies of Fairfax, Va. It is set along a 1.25-mile stretch of the Potomac River. When complete, the development will feature the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, 2,500 residential units and 500,000 square feet of office space. In addition to dining, shopping and entertainment venues, National Harbor offers fishing, boating and other water sports.
Peterson Contracted With Creative Form Liners to Design and Fabricate The Chesapeake bay Mural. the Structure Features 8-foot Formal Portraits Of Historical People Such as Pocahontas and George Washington, an Aerial View Of Washington, D.c., and a 4-by-6-foot Image of the Famed Maryland Blue Crab. Ninety Historical Icons are Embedded Into the Mural, Forming a Scavenger Hunt of Sorts for National Harbor Visitors.
In Creative Form Liners’ 10,000-square-foot studio, located in Brentwood, Md., 15 craftspeople labored for months fabricating 27 8-by-8-foot sections. Each panel is 4.5 inches thick and weighs over two tons.
This past spring, those components were trucked to National Harbor, where Peterson personnel had prepared the site. Four hoist eyelets were placed on each section so they could be picked up by crane. Although the panels were made to fit together like puzzle pieces without any binding material, the installation was a painstaking, five-day process. The Peterson staff finessed the crane and the sections to set each together to reveal the mural.
Other applications
Creative Forms Liners is currently fabricating decorative components for 12 highway bridges. At Florida State University’s medical school in Tallahassee, the company created an outdoor plaza wall with portraits. Each mural measures 7.5 by 8.5 feet and displays full color images of Hippocrates, known as the “father of medicine”; Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States; and John Gorrie, the Floridian inventor and doctor best known for the discovery of refrigeration and air-conditioning. In Largo, Md., 2 miles of sidewalks display a total of 30 4-by-6-foot ovals depicting historical scenes.
The Washington, D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities commissioned Creative Form Liners for a 6-by-30-foot, eight panel centerpiece water feature mural depicting portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith and Rosa Parks, all former patrons of the old H Street Community in the nation’s capital.
“We’re on the leading edge of aesthetic highway design,” Handy says. “These applications are just the surface; there are endless possibilities for fine arts and major commercial applications.”
Learn more about Creative Form Liners online at www.creativeformliners.com or by phone at 301-864-3676.
The author is a freelance writer based in Greensboro, N.C.