Charcon Masters the Art of Hard Landscaping
Hard landscaping specialist Charcon has turned paving into an
art form, with the company’s products complementing two major Welsh
cultural centres.
Products from Charcon’s natural stone and pre-cast concrete flag
and block paving ranges were specified on the Wales Millennium
Centre (WMC) in Cardiff and Galeri, the brand new creative
enterprise centre in Caernarfon.
The WMC is the first national cultural institution built in
Wales for over 50 years and is home to seven of Wales' leading arts
and cultural organisations creating a remarkable self-contained
artistic community. At the heart of the building is an auditorium
for an audience of up to 1,850, designed to set new standards for
high performance in natural acoustics (for opera and ballet) and
amplified sound (for touring musicals and contemporary dance).
Designed by Percy Thomas, the architecture of the building, its
forms and the materials selected are inspired by elements of the
Welsh Landscape and by the nation's social and cultural
traditions.
At the WMC, Appalachian Flag Paving in Black Fleck were
combined with natural stone setts to create a chequerboard pattern
on more than 2,000 square metres of walkways around the centre. The
Appalachian Flag Paving in Black Fleck was
developed by Charcon specifically for Cardiff and has been used
throughout the regeneration of Cardiff Docks.
Caernarfon’s new arts centre, known as Galeri, was designed by
award-winning Edinburgh architect, Richard Murphy and constructed
by Bangor-based builders, Watkin Jones. It includes a 400-seat
theatre, which also doubles up as a cinema, an art space, café bar,
performance and rehearsal studios, conference/meeting rooms for
hire and 27 workspaces. In addition to providing a unique facility
for the Centre is also critically important to the overall
regeneration of Caernarfon town centre, the Victoria Dock area and
the wider community as a whole.
Designed to replicate natural Caithness stone paving, Charcon’s
Courtstone Flag Paving was used to provide an
authentic Celtic feel in combination with contemporary Andover Textured Block Paving and the popular
Countryside Classic Kerb in all pedestrian and
car parking areas.
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