Surface Design Awards – Complete

• INTERIOR SURFACE OF THE YEAR - NEW
  This is a new category that recognises wall, floor, ceiling and surface design products, including decorative, creative and inventive surfaces for the interior of buildings including both commercial and residential properties.
• COMMERCIAL BUILDING - INTERIOR
  Commercial Buildings that are used for commercial purposes, and include retail, hospitality, workplaces, factories and warehouses and buildings where commercial services are provided. At least 50 percent of the buildings’ floor space will be used for commercial activities.
• PUBLIC BUILDING - INTERIOR
  Public Buildings used by the public for any purpose, such as assembly, education, entertainment, government, healthcare, transport or worship. This will also include civic centres, community centres, libraries, visitor centres, culture, health + wellbeing, faith, education, sports venues and stadia, transport, central + local government, entertainment and event venues.

Amongst a sea of otherwise grey industrial coating projects, it’s not often that an installation like Wedding Cake, Waddesdon comes along for either a manufacturer or specialist flooring applicator.

Standing at 12 metres tall within a grove of trees on the estate of the famed Waddesdon Manor, an historic party house in the heart of Buckinghamshire, this ceramic sculptural pavilion — in the form of a three-tiered wedding cake — is the latest Rothschild Foundation commission from celebrated Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos.

Aptly named Wedding Cake, over 25,000 gleaming, icing-like ceramic tiles decorate the cake — all made in a traditional Portuguese manufactory — glazed in pale pinks, greens, and blues.

Cupids balance playfully on pedestals, water spurts from the mouths of dolphins and little statues of St Anthony bless newlyweds all around the tiled circumference of this weirdly spectacular folly. Kitsch and beautiful, absurd and captivating, this wholeheartedly joyful, artistic masterpiece is to serve as both a tourist attraction and exclusive-use events venue.

Visitors are invited inside, passing between the electric candles and ceramic mermaids, to find a domed circular wedding chapel that pulses with bright colours, twisty columns, and even more jaunty figures.

Climbing the stairs to the higher tiers of the pavilion one can find themselves above the trees immersed into an impossibly light and heady place. This is a building with the irresponsibility of a work of art.

Wedding Cake is described a playful swansong to the history of placing fanciful buildings in gardens and landscapes, which at Waddesdon already includes the ornamental Dairy and gilded Rococo-style Aviary.

In a nod to the famed Estate’s legacy, Wedding Cake is now being used as an exclusive-use party or conference venue. You can even get married in it. And the carnival frolics of its teeming surfaces promise all kinds of weddings, far from convention or tradition. It’s a temple to human joy, a tower of love.

Wedding Cake is not Vasconcelos’ first work at Waddesdon. Just steps away you’ll find Lafite, two candlestick-shaped sculptures composed of illuminated Chateau Lafite Rothschild magnum bottles, which the Rothschild Foundation commissioned in 2015 as an homage to the family’s Bordeaux wine estate.

In 2012, Vasconcelos’s Pavillon de Thé teapot was featured in a contemporary sculpture exhibition in partnership with Christie’s at Waddesdon Manor, and her work was displayed on site again in 2016.

“It’s difficult to find somebody who can dream at the same level that you do,” says Vasconcelos. Known for her playful monumental sculptures, laden with messages about love, femininity, and domesticity, the Lisbon-based artist’s oeuvre spans art, design, and fashion.

Luckily when it comes to dreaming big, Vasconcelos found a kindred spirit in Lord Jacob Rothschild. Bringing the 12-meter-high, three-tiered Wedding Cake to life would require engineering feats to withstand outdoor weather conditions and meet Vasconcelos’ exacting standards. “The project needed someone brave, someone who possesses the art knowledge and life experience that Lord R has.”

Lord Rothschild said, “We are delighted to be collaborating again with Joana Vasconcelos, whose work is already magnificently represented at Waddesdon by her giant candlesticks, Lafite. The vision, imagination and ambition exemplified in the Wedding Cake is a perfect match for the passion which drove Baron Ferdinand, the creator of Waddesdon, to build the Manor and the Dairy, where he intended that his many friends would be surprised and delighted at every turn. I am sure that the Wedding Cake will have just as great an impact on visitors and wedding guests today.”

With the backing of Rothschild, Vasconcelos has been free to turn her ‘dream’ into reality, with all interiors, building materials and colours left entirely to her creative discretion rather than budgetary restrictions for a change!

The project involved the installation of 100m2 of Vebro Polymers’ vebroflex Comfort UV Plus system in RAL 6019 Pastel Green in the central area atrium with RAL 9010 Pure White around the perimeter of the lower floor.

vebroflex Comfort UV Plus is a solid-coloured, UV-stable, elasticised, polyurethane liquid-vinyl resin that achieves up to 200% elongation at break. Once cured, the material delivers a smooth, matt-finish surface that deadens sound transfer between floors by up to 4Db. Additional sound absorption can be achieved with a liquid membrane or rubber matting.

Originally ceramic tiles were considered, but a resin floor was ultimately chosen by the artist to ensure a seamless transition between the floors and walls, and to colour match perfectly to the vibrant pastel pallet of the tiles and sculptures adorning the exterior façade.

Major benefits of opting for a comfort resin included the reduced risk of cracking due to the increased flexibility of the polyurethane resin and a reduction in noise transmission caused by footfall in multi-level spaces.

Comfort resin flooring is also hygienic and easy to clean given their seamless and smooth finish — plus comfort resin flooring comes in a vast range of colours and decorative effects.

The durability of resin flooring makes it more cost-effective than other flooring systems such as tiles, sheet vinyl and linoleum; it’s more resilient and therefore generally lasts a lot longer.

The aliphatic water-based clear matt sealer offers excellent scratch and wear resistance properties — perfect for preventing damage and scratches from high-heels!

Formulated from natural biopolymers, the vebroflex Comfort UV Plus system is based on a primed aliphatic body coat sealed with a transparent, matt-finish aliphatic PU sealer.

The system is AgBB certified low emissions in compliance with both BREAM and LEED regulations.

The AgBB evaluation scheme sets out the quality standards for building products intended for use indoors that are relevant to health. In doing so, the scheme fosters the innovation and development of particularly low-emission products.

The AgBB scheme has been developed in compliance with a number of international standards, including ISO 16000 standards and LEED, ensuring certified products meet the criteria set out, as well as contribute to building credits where applicable.

LEED is the preeminent program for the design, construction, maintenance and operations of high-performance green buildings, setting out a framework and providing third-party verification for a building’s green design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

It is imperative that comfort floors be installed by experienced applicators. Any cracks in the substrate should be bandaged or a levelling screed should be used to ensure a smooth, level surface prior to the installation of polyurethane comfort flooring as any imperfections will show in the substrate when cured if preparation isn’t taken seriously.

The area needs to be sealed prior to installation, with all windows and doors firmly closed, as well as free from moisture or dust particles. Most resin comfort floors are two to three-layer systems and typically a day is recommended between each coat.

RFS project managed and installed the flooring package at Wedding Cake — including all surface preparation work, reinforcement of the existing screed, and installing vebroflex Comfort UV system. The entire project was delivered in six days.

The install involved an intricate mandala formed in brass, positioned in the centre of the lower atrium, creating a stunning central focal point underfoot.

A mandala is a complex abstract design, usually circular in form and often considered to be sacred, representing harmony, unity and the connection between our inner worlds and outer reality.

RFS used the pigmented aliphatic comfort resin to infill each of the brass trim petals using a large syringe, meticulously injected one by one, taking a whole day to complete — making it very much a labour of love. Once cured, the remaining vebroflex body coat was installed before the mandala and rest of the floor was sealed with an aliphatic transparent matt sealer.

Prior to vebroflex Comfort UV Plus being installed, the cementitious screed was reinforced using vebroscreed R&S (Repair & Strengthen), increasing its compressive strength.

vebroscreed R&S is a transparent, solvent free epoxy material used to penetrate fine cracks in cement-based semi-dry screeds — injecting additional strength prior to the installation of floor coverings.

This was carried out by pouring the mixed material across the slab and spread using a rubber squeegee blade before finishing with a short pile mohair roller. Priming ahead of applying the polyurethane comfort resin could be carried out after 15 hours.