When Jacques van Wyk joined the Stucco Italiano fold in 2009, it was immediately apparent that he had all the qualities to become a passionate leader in the field of decorative concrete.  This is demonstrated in his own description of Stucco Italiano Free State: “combine passion with beauty and honesty and what you get is a beautiful honest finish applied with passion.”

Being an architect and builder himself, Jacques has an acute knowledge and understanding of the latest usages of different building materials and recent trends in the industry.  Stucco Italiano Free State manufactures a large range of cementitious and concrete products, from Colour Plasters for Floors & Walls, Ground & Polished Concrete Floors and Countertops to Industrial Flooring products.  They also manufacture concrete furniture and specially designed concrete items.

The wide range of finishes manufactured by Stucco Italiano makes it possible to overcome what could otherwise be considerable design and construction challenges.  Stucco Italiano Free State can assist in the application of suitable floor finishes for many areas and even the repair of botched-up floors.  The company offers external wall finishes that will last for 25 years and beyond with minimal maintenance.  These wall finishes can resemble an old world finish or a fresh look for a more contemporary design.  Stucco Italiano Free State also does waterproofing of concrete roofs, water features and many more.

With continuous design and development of new and better products, Stucco Italiano is a leader in these fields.

It is a fact that what Jacques achieves as the owner of Stucco Italiano Free State is in complete alignment with who he is and the energy that he derives from doing it.

Our first aim was to make quality our stand-out feature, but also to be regarded as among the very best displays of excellence at the 2015 Homemakers Expo.  Our efforts were handsomely rewarded with a Gold Award for Excellence.

It is never easy to properly present products and services, as well as our brand philosophy, in such a small allocated space.  Realising that even the interested visitor only spends a maximum of 15 minutes per stand, we had to showcase concrete as a product of excellence and prove that our concrete products differ from the rest…… namely Concrete with Soul.

We chose to show products mainly in art format.  The design of our stand aimed to convey the compatibility between our different products and the ability to encompass all the different design styles.

Stucco Italiano’s luxurious “Stucco Delight” Epoxy Floor finish was displayed against a black Tadelakt wall as two decorative artistic wall pieces.  The contemporary precast concrete coffee table complemented the white decorative plastered wall which was created by using a special plaster technique.

Our Off Shutter Lightweight Concrete  wall panels were showcased for the first time.  We highlighted the charcoal Off Shutter Lightweight wall panels as wall cladding, complemented by different precast concrete strips, placed horizontally onto the adjacent wall, and finished the floor with grey Off Shutter Concrete floor tiles.  These wall and floor finishes, were in turn enhanced by a very futuristic bendable precast concrete coffee table.  These combinations of finishes seemed quite popular and certainly became a “show stopper” for the visitors.

Another classical and stylish part of the stand proved to be our newly launched hexagonal cementitious floor tiles in various colours, combined with our very popular Stucco Italiano AquaGuard Wall Plaster, with a precast fireplace surround placed against it.

Our Polished Concrete Floors and Precast items were displayed as precast polished concrete floor panels, showing different surface finishes, combined with grey Off Shutter Lightweight wall panels.  Precast polished concrete floating stair treads and precast polished concrete stair claddings were displayed in this corner of our stand.  An exquisite Nicole Pletts painting from Lindy Van Niekerk Art Gallery enhanced the beautiful green wall, plastered with the colour Palmerie from our Tadelakt range.

The highlight – not to use the word lightly – of our stand, was undoubtedly the “Glow in the Dark Concrete” displayed for the first time in South Africa at this scale.  To quote numerous visitors ….”a must to see” …..”something different” …..”best display at the Expo” …ext.  This luminous Glow in the Dark Concrete is very new in the concrete industry.  We elected to show this in the form of a complete bathroom to give visitors a real sense of how the product could look and create atmosphere in a home.

The Homemakers Expo 2015 was one of the best Expo’s we were privileged to be able to participate in, from the large numbers of visitors to the quality of visitors and enquiries about our products.

If there ever was any doubt , the Expo once again made it clear to us that concrete is among the most well known and durable building materials of all time.  Concrete as a decorative building material, is timeless, a trend-setter that will remain in fashion for a long time to come.

Beverley Heuer, one of our very artistic staff members, took on a quite difficult task by painting our brand new logo’s with Stucco Italiano AquaGuard Plaster onto canvas and it was also exhibited at the Homemakers Expo.

Suspended precast concrete ceiling beams:

The ceiling in the main lounge area consisted of precast concrete beams of white concrete with diamond gravel as aggregate and sandblasted afterwards to produce a very weathered finish.  The first challenge was to source the right aggregate to comply with SAOTA specifications.  The initial selection of West Coast aggregate had to be abandonded when it could not be established whether the gravel could still be diamondiferous and was then substituted for gravel found further afield in the Northern Cape.

A total of 102 precast beams had to be suspended from the reinforced first floor concrete slab.  These beams weighed an average of 830 kg each.  Little margin for error was allowed with average tolerances at 3mm per 6,5 m.  The task was further complicated due to the fact that the precast beams were cast at WODC’s casting yard, finished there and then transported to the building site.  It is no surprise that building sites of this nature offer unique challenges and difficulties of their own, which had to be overcome.  On top of it all, all services had to be preplanned and placed during the casting process

The nett result was a singular success due to a formidable team effort by WODC and SAOTA.  The final product speaks for itself.

White structural concrete

Virtually the entire project was completed by using white structural concrete and then given a weathered appearance by sandblasting.  The pressure was on WODC to deliver consistent and matching results.  This task was made all the more challenging since various precast concrete items produced at the WODC casting yard also had to perfectly match the in situ concrete on site.

Polished concrete floors

It was an excellent design choice to finish the garage and house with polished concrete floors.  In this manner a residence can display stature and excellence.

The 450m² of garage flooring consisted of normal in situ concrete and was finished through a 7 stage process of diamond grinding and polishing.  This process ensures a durable and functional finish with a high gloss finish.  The result is one of quality and top-end finish.

The residence itself required over 1000m² of white polished concrete flooring.  Due to SAOTA specifying an aggregate no larger than 4mm-6mm, WODC elected to cast 15mm PMC (polymer modified concrete).  This necessitated casting, finishing and matching many precast items such as skirtings, wall cladding and staircase claddings at the WODC casting yard.

The white PMC polished concrete floors certainly added lustre to the overall design and fully complied with SAOTA’s design planning.

Their choice of white ground and polished concrete flooring was therefore spot on.  The durability of this floor was an important criterium, but so also was the high gloss finish of the white polished concrete floor.  This gloss offers a high level of light reflection, an important consideration for the specialised work undertaken by CMC Auto Panel.

Of equal importance to WODC was the need to comply with and possibly even exceed client expectations.  Our first objective was to select the right partners with the required quality and service attributes demanded for a white polished concrete floor.  WODC approached Lafarge as product supplier and Premier Concrete Floors to cast and lay the concrete.

WODC performed key functions in preparing the concrete batch mix, first by sourcing the white aggregate and then with the design itself.  Lafarge and WODC were both involved in the concrete batch mix, which was first tested in the laboratory before actual casting commenced.  White concrete offers a special set of difficulties and differs from ordinary grey concrete in that it hardens much faster, with consequent pressure on suppliers and the casting of the concrete itself.  It was a nervewrecking process for Lafarge to prevent aggregate contamination in the white concrete mix.

The ability to grind and polish white concrete flooring is another problematic area.  Not all ground and polished concrete floor contractors can deliver products of quality and consistency. In this respect, WODC is fortunate to have mastered the process and can justifiably claim to produce white polished concrete flooring of the highest quality.

WODC has undoubtedly been able to deliver the right product to properly satisfy the demands and expectations of our client by producing an upmarket white polished concrete floor with a high gloss finish and a fantastic appearance.