Circularity you can see
Sustainability in construction often stays abstract: a figure on a data sheet, a certificate in a file. With this project it is different. The colourful specks in the floor were once sports shoes — material discarded by a well-known sports brand, which was processed into aggregate through a recycling process.
What was left as waste now lies as a floor. And that is not a hidden technical measure: it is at the same time the visual character of the space. Every fragment has its own colour, shape and origin.
How a terrazzo floor is built up
A poured terrazzo floor consists of two components: a binder and an aggregate. The binder determines the technical properties — adhesion, strength, wear resistance, behaviour under load. The aggregate determines the look: colour, grain size, density and contrast.
That separation is exactly what makes terrazzo so suitable for circular building. As long as the aggregate has the right hardness and grain distribution, it can come from very different sources. Natural stone and marble chips are the classic choice, but recycled glass, ceramics and — as here — processed plastics are equally possible.
After curing, the surface is ground. Only at that moment do the aggregates really come into view: grinding exposes the cross-section of every fragment and reveals the pattern that until then lay below the surface.
Why this is more than a nice story
Circularity only means something if the end result also holds up technically. A floor that has to be replaced after five years weighs more heavily on the environment than a floor that lasts thirty years — however sustainable the raw materials were.
That is why, with this kind of application, we always look at two things at once: the origin of the material and the service life of the system. A seamless, ground terrazzo floor is wear-resistant, repairable and easy to maintain. When it wears, the surface can be ground again instead of broken out — the floor is like new again without any material being lost.
For us that is the core: sustainability lies both in the raw material and in the time a floor lasts. At Cuore we try to use renewable or recycled raw materials as much as possible in production, and we develop our systems so that they last a long time.
Unique to each project
A floor with recycled aggregates is by definition a one-off. The composition of the recycling stream determines the colour picture, and that stream is never twice the same. For a client that means a floor that literally exists nowhere else — and that tells a story as soon as someone asks why there are green and orange specks in it.
Made with our products.
Want to know more?
Are you considering a terrazzo floor with recycled aggregates for a project? Feel free to get in touch — we are happy to look at which aggregates and which build-up are feasible within your design.
You can read which renewable and recycled raw materials are in our systems, and what local production means in practice, in our frequently asked questions.