SEAMLESS CLASS
Diespeker stepped up to challenge of creating a terrazzo with glass insets as part of an award-winning design brief at a London restaurant.
Italian restaurant, Fucina in Chiltern Street, Marylebone is the brainchild of Australian-born restaurateur Kurt Zdesar. The establishment opened to acclaim in late 2016 and Zdesar brought in head chef Stefano Stecca, from Rimini, who was formerly head chef at Toto’s in Chelsea.
The Fucina style is casual-luxury. It serves only organic produce, including the wine and soft drinks, and has a quirky adjoining panetteria for baking their own bread. In fact, many ingredients, including ice-cream, pasta and pastries, are also made in-house. A private dining room boasts a wood- burning fire pit for cooking meats, and the restaurant has two communal tables for seating without reservations, as well as a small bar and an espresso coffee counter.
Fucina was designed by Andy Martin Architecture (AMA), an inspirational studio responsible for Barrafina, Chan and Chotto Matte, amongst others. Fucina means forge in Italian, and the materials used reflect this, with timber, brick and blackened steel.
Diespeker was originally approached by the architects in 2014 with a request to see if it was possible to create a terrazzo with glass inset for specific sections of the restaurant floor. The creative was inspired by flooring in the Olivetti Showroom in St Mark’s Square, Venice, designed by architect Carlo Scarpa. The flooring here uses mosaic tiles in a variety of colours and gives the impression of moving water.
While plans for the new-build restaurant were firmed up, Diespeker developed new expertise with resin based terrazzo, in particular with flooring created for the refurbished J&M Davidson boutique in Mayfair.
When AMA contacted Diespeker again in 2016 about bespoke terrazzo for the Fucina project, the team was able to suggest an alternative, resin-based terrazzo solution, to give a more seamless finish.
Diespeker’s expert team carefully selected a block of Italian Carrara marble in Italy; this popular white marble boasts grey veins giving a unique finish every time. The block was sliced into 10mm thick sheets before being transported to Diespeker’s Bermondsey factory. There, the sheets were cut into around 16,000 marble shapes, 4,000 each of four different trapezium-style shapes.
Installation was to a cement screed; fibreglass sheeting was bonded to the screed and the individual marble shapes hand- laid on to the sheeting. The installation of the shapes was sequential, meaning great care had to be taken during laying. A mid-grey resin base was poured in situ for a seamless finish, before polishing and grinding.
All five sections of the terrazzo floor have curved profiles, which required careful attention to detail when cutting the shapes to ensure compliance to the curves. These curved edges create a flow through the restaurant, perfectly fitting the architect’s vision of a sculpted space echoing raw and refined materials.
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The terrazzo flooring adjoins engineered tongue and groove timber flooring, and 3mm anodised aluminium transition strips were used to create the flush between the two floor finishes.
Andy Martin Architecture was awarded Commercial Interior: Surface Design Awards in February for the inspirational interior of Fucina, with judges acknowledging the distortion of surfaces, and the simple clear interior that was described as “technically hard to achieve.”
Diespeker is currently working on various bespoke terrazzo projects for clients including a 700m² resin terrazzo floor with blue glass chips for a north-west London supermarket. For another unusual project recently, the company created a bespoke cement terrazzo countertop and display panel using pieces of 100 broken green beer bottles.
www.diespeker.co.uk MARBLE, STONE & TERRAZZO | 43 PROJECT DETAILS:
• Lead time: six weeks for preparation and cutting • Installation: four installers on site for around four weeks • Floorspace: total resin based terrazzo floorspace of 55m²
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