This Diwali, why don?t you change the way your home looks? Try some butterflies fluttering on the floor or a few sinful black mirrors shimmering in the black-cemented floor at your new bar or a subtle gray-toned jacuzzi embolden with multi-hued marble chips for the bathroom. In vogue now maybe, but nothing new to humankind. It?s time to revisit terrazzo. In its comeback and trendy avatar, the ancient mosaic flooring, which originated as a simple mix of stone chips bound by cement, has travelled from the veranda of your ancestral home to the living room in the apartment you just shifted into.
For Anil Bansal, a Delhi-based architect, requests for designer terrazzo have been pouring in from all directions. This is making him innovate with new materials ? glass, resins, motifs, borders, patterns ? being tried on the new canvas. According to him, the best benefit of terrazzo has always been its seamless versatility in a basic material with less cost and no maintenance hassles later on. Then comes the extent of creativity and exclusitivity. A demand among those who want newness from the over-hyped marble flooring and over-used tiled floor, terrazzo could be done at costs ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 500 per sqft. ?Another good aspect (of terrazzo) is that there is not much shift in the audience. The people who have had terrazzo in their homes for years still trust it. And those new to it, find it the latest style statement,? he says.
Used by Venetian construction workers as a low-cost flooring material, say records, terrazzo was created by workers from marble chips usually set in clay to surface the patios around their living quarters. Consisting initially of marble chips, clay, goat milk (as the sealer), production of terrazzo became much easier after the 1920s and the introduction of electric industrial grinders and other power equipment. Then came several value additions. As per styling, the trials include the floor being divided into interesting patters with coloured mirrors to accentuate the look. As far as maintenance is considered, terrazzo?s marble surface is practically non-absorbent, so most materials that stain ? paint, oil or other reagents ? don?t affect it much. ?Though one needs to be cautious about the cement binder, which is porous and gets stained easily. To avoid the stains, one can go for the epoxy, polyester, urethane or other synthetic resins, which do not contain cement,? advises Bansal.
A big-time user, Rajiv Saini today has a style book on terrazzo, much alive in almost all his new creations. ?Today it is not the same 10 inch x 10 inch idea. It is more to do with personal or local touch,? says design consultant Rajiv Saini, whose projects include the Devi Garh palace at Udaipur. His experiments with terrazzo helped him give a new dimension to the hotel. ?Like, the terrazzo was functional with right furniture used to highlight the patterns on the floor,? says the architect, who loves to try geometric patterns, adding, ?and then there are experiments like terrazzo being tried in bathtubs, table tops and seatings in the garden, making terrazzo flexible and dependable.?
Though Delhi-based Jawahar Arora has known this all his life, he was reminded of it once again when an architect redeveloped his home. The latter showed a lot of appreciation for his old bathroom. The terrazzo done here in white cement was beautiful and tough to break down. ?We were told not to change it. But, considering we were redoing the whole home, we went for another terrazzo. This time in black,? he says.
So, if you are looking for another corner to try out something arty and sturdy, buddy look down.