Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Concrete Floors Deliver the 'Wow' Factor

  • 10/01/19
concrete floors

Flooring with a polished concrete overlay adds the “wow” factor to the new Environmental Science Building on the campus of Skyline College in San Bruno, CA.

In San Bruno, CA, Skyline College recently unveiled the newest addition to its campus—the 21,000-square-foot, $40.7-million, multipurpose Environmental Science Building. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, this building houses laboratory classrooms, lecture halls, academic offices, a catering kitchen, and a gallery that optimizes its dazzling ocean views. Though the gallery floors aren’t the primary spectacle in this space, they offer their own “wow” factor.

“Usually there’s not a lot of decorative flooring thrown into county and state campuses,” says Bonnie Boden, senior project manager with flooring contractor Floor Seal Technology. “However, this project is very exclusive, very different, very private. It looks over the Pacific Ocean, it sits on the back side of the college, and their intent is to sell it as a luxury, exclusive event center. We are in the Bay Area. We have a lot of high-tech companies and private events that will utilize this space.”

For a floor befitting this use, terrazzo was originally proposed, as per the vision of Ron Galatolo, chancellor of Skyline College and the San Mateo County Community College District to which it belongs.

“Originally this was supposed to be terrazzo, but Ron didn’t like the way that terrazzo tends to be wavy, and if it does scratch, it turns white,” Boden says. “He had the idea of a black overlay colored concrete floor.”

His idea led Boden’s team to a new product from PROSOCO called Integral Color for Overlays, a liquid concentrated pigment that colors cement mixtures in overlay applications on concrete floors. There was more than one advantage to the flooring option of a polished concrete overlay, a self-leveling floor topping experiencing a recent surge in popularity.

“One of the highlights of doing an overlay cementitious floor versus terrazzo is the cost difference,” Boden says. “The cost could be substantially less, if not twice as less than a typical terrazzo floor. When you do add a little more decorative aggregate, the (cost per) square foot does go up a little bit, but you’re still talking about at least $20 a square foot less than the terrazzo.”

As it turned out, the overlay option would deliver Galatolo’s desired aesthetic effect at a lower cost than terrazzo.

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management October 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Colorado School District Breaks Ground on Unified PK–12 Campus

    The Haxtun School District No. Re-2J in Haxtun, Colo., recently announced that ground has been broken on a renovation/addition project that will unite its two schools, Haxtun Elementary and Haxtun Jr/Sr High School, according to a news release.

  • Deferred Maintenance Issues Growing at Universities, Gordian Reports

    U.S. colleges and universities are falling increasingly behind on facilities maintenance and repair, according to Gordian’s 13th annual State of Facilities in Higher Education report. The deferred capital renewal burden has reached $156 per gross square foot, an 8% increase over the previous year.

  • Universities Continue to Launch Multimillion-Dollar Campus Transformations

    What makes the current wave of campus development especially noteworthy is its emphasis on multi-use functionality and community integration. Institutions are no longer investing solely in academic or athletic facilities in isolation. Instead, they are creating destinations that blend recreation, health, housing, and event-driven economic activity.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.