When you’re curating a public space meant to be used for many years to come, our favorite professionals pay close attention to three important design pillars: color, texture and scale. Successful public space designers understand that it’s important to stay “on-trend” with your demographic to appeal to guests, but remain mainstay enough to create a timeless landscape built to last.
You can create a contemporary, polished commercial space by mixing and matching landscape design principles. Public space landscaping doesn’t have to be complicated — adding visual interest through color, unique textures and varying scales can help achieve a seamless-yet-unique look.
Color
Color is one of the greatest ways to add flavor and excitement to your landscape design. You need a wide color range for your hardscaping products to create the perfect public space. A diverse array of colors are featured in multiple product lines, making it easy for designers and architects to mix, match, and contrast.
The image above, of Murray Street in Griffintown, Montreal, Canada, shows how color can be used to define a pedestrian space. This street needed to be able to withstand emergency vehicular traffic, along with high pedestrian foot traffic and pedal biking traffic. The Murray Street design used Industria pavers with a Granitex finish in three custom colors to match the institution’s buildings and create a cohesive design.
Every building and public space has a unique story to tell. Designing with a full range of available color choices gives professionals the tools they need to fully express the desired aesthetic. With Techo-Bloc’s thermodynamically-stabilized iron oxide pigments, you can choose to add color to your pavers without worrying about fading due to Mother Nature’s extremes.
If you want to remain neutral-toned with your stones, Techo-Bloc has options for you, allowing you to keep it minimal or add color with green spaces, flower beds or lights. For bright pops of color that last from spring to fall, plant annual, or small bedding flower plants. You can even focus on adding variations and shades of greenery.
For example, Barberry shrubs are extremely low-maintenance but provide gorgeous seasonal color with its yellow-green hue. They are ideal for many soil types and work well as foundation plantings or hedges. Another example is Gold Thread Cypress, which provides an uncommon golden color and can add texture to a landscape. This low shrub requires very little pruning, and because it’s evergreen, you’ll get color all year round.
Take into account your area’s exposure to sunlight and how it will appear at all hours of the day. For instance, shadows paired with coral color accents, Pantone’s color of the year in 2019, boasts bright golden hour undertones sure to wow any guest.
And adding Techo-Bloc’s garden and retaining walls can help you make a statement and increase the dimension of your space. Retaining walls, especially paired with color, add visual interest in whichever way you decide to incorporate them into your public space.
Plus, our colors blend across all categories, so the pavers you select will match your retaining walls, wall caps and more, to create seamless color blending for monochromatic looks.
Texture
Techo-Bloc has a multitude of textures that take inspiration from every corner of the globe: wood, granite, basalt, polished, brushed travertine, smooth, ocean waves, sand dunes or split face, the list goes on and on. While our products may be made of concrete, our replication of nature’s finest finishes is unparalleled.
You can specify ultra-smooth surfaces, or you can get ornate with incredibly detailed finish. With all these options in the realm of texture, you have plenty of opportunities to mix and match in unique configurations for an end product that is as fresh as it is durable.
Texture adds dimension and depth to a project, for increased visual interest. You can use tone-on-tone coloring when you utilize texture play, elevating what would be considered a bland look to a striking application of texture.
With texture options from Techo-Bloc, you can achieve almost any aesthetic. Check out our texture guide for more information.
Scale
No matter what you have in mind for your landscaping project, there’s a paving stone that fits, from larger-than-life to teeny-tiny and every size in between. Techo-Bloc has large paving slabs for grand spaces and smaller stones for banding, contouring and mosaics.
When designing your public space, don’t make the mistake of not accounting for any nearby buildings’ scales and dimensions. Make sure you layer plants and greenery of varying heights to create a depth of field and dimension that complements and doesn’t detract from a building’s design.
You can also create larger shapes by using smaller-scale pieces, as in the image above. By using multiple small squares in different tones, you can create a larger, intricate design that mimics the rest of the area’s aesthetics and provides a dynamic design. Original mosaics are a way to bring art to the ground level. As shown above, you can use smaller pavers to create a mosaic that comes to life.
Techo-Bloc’s oversized paving slabs are a surefire way to add a luxury and richness that is rarely achieved with most outdoor concrete slabs. These stones are perfect for your public space walkway and entertainment area. They come in a variety of colors and textures and are a show-stopping way to mix and match easily and stylishly.
Techo-Bloc Is Here to Inspire You
Techo-Bloc’s motto is “we live to create.” When working with architects, designers and landscape architects on commercial design projects, our goal is to offer the building blocks for your genius. The paint for your masterpiece.
If we don’t have a product that supports your vision, reach out to us, there are always custom options. Reach out to your local sales representative to schedule a lunch and learn today.
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