Materia’s ‘Concrete Candies’ exhibition presented concrete from many new and dynamic perspectives to visitors at Rotterdam’s ARCHITECT@WORK event, held on September 18th and 19th, 2014. There were more than 4678 visitors and 280 exhibitors in this very inspiring atmosphere. If you were unable to attend this event, find out what you missed here.

Concrete in all its Variations:

Materia’s exhibition hosted a number of ‘special objects’ including very lightweight, strong and seductive concrete jewelry and product designs by Gravelli. Other highlights included the technical brilliance of G.tecz Engineering, beautiful material selections from UK based Graphic Relief, industry leading translucent concrete materials from Luccon, as well as an update from the world of  self-healing concrete by Erik Shlangen. And very popular with both kids and adults was the Concrete Bench that looks like a soft textile, but demonstrates all the material strengths concrete has to offer.

Via ARCHITECT@WORK, an exquisite table designed by Michaela Stegerwald and produced by 8R Betondesign was located at the heart of the exhibition.

Highlights from Materia’s collection:

Inspirational concretes selected from Materia’s world-leading catalogue of materials anchored the show. Some highlights included surfaces from of-stone, Pfleiderer HPL ‘Loft Concrete’, skinny.B, Durabella, Duramique and the always popular and glamorous Crystal Inlay.

Lectures:

ARCHITECT@WORK presented a very diverse lecture programme built around concrete, the theme of the exhibition. Els Zijlstra, founder of Materia, kicked this programme off with an overview of current developments in concrete. Her lecture included the latest on the structural and aesthetic properties of concrete, as well as some exciting and new concrete techniques such as 3D printing and and CNC milling. Sustainability was another major theme of her lecture. With concrete contributing to up to 10% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, ‘green concrete’ themes as presented by Els Zijlstra were more topical than ever.

‘Very convincing,’ said designer Eugene Schouten as he left the Concrete Candies exhibition. ‘It was fantastic, everyone was here!’