Bar Code pavement

Design for an industrialized while varied pavement

Various locations, Spain

Production modes: breaking monotony into subtle variety

The standard production of precast concrete pavements is done through a steel mould that contains as many identical pieces of pavement as possible. This mould is stamped on a shelf of fresh concrete. When the mould is lifted, twelve identical pieces of pavement are obtained.

This generates the known pavement with a repetitive monotonous pattern.  Instead of having 12 identical pieces in one mould, we propose to dispose 4 sets of 3 slightly different pieces randomly placed, which doesn’t make the mould more expensive.

The shelf of pavement pieces that is obtained has a disorderly set of different pieces, which will consequently be stocked disorderly at the factory and put randomly on site. This generates a varied yet homogeneous texture.

Project name

Bar Code pavement

Location

Different sites

Client

GLS Prefabricados

Year

2007

Status

In production

Program

Product Design

Author

Eduard Balcells Architecture+Urbanism+Landscape

Manel Castellnou, architect