Shellcrete driveway and entrance steps
Sarasota, Florida
A driveway and front entrance in exposed-shell Shellcrete. The steps are mitred at the nosings so the slab thickness reads as one piece, with step lights inset into the landing, and the driveway surface is dense with rings, spirals and whole shell fragments.
The challenge
Two surfaces on one property that get judged together and behave completely differently. A driveway takes vehicle loads and rain running toward the street. An entrance step gets walked on wet, at night, by people carrying things.
What we did
Both in exposed shell, for grip, and detailed so the two read as one piece of work.
The driveway runs the full frontage as banded slabs with grass strips between them, so the run to the garage is broken up without a single saw cut. The steps are mitred at the nosings — the top face and the riser are cut at forty-five degrees and closed, so the slab thickness reads as solid all the way through rather than as a topping wrapped over a step. It is more work at the edge and it is the detail that separates a poured step from a clad one.
Step lights are inset into the landing rather than surface-mounted, and the front walkway runs past a stacked black-slate planter wall capped in the same material.
The result
Ground-level frames through the gallery show what the finish is actually doing: rings, spirals and shell fragments sharp at the surface, on the two areas where somebody is most likely to slip. The banded layout carries the eye down the whole frontage, which makes the driveway read as part of the architecture rather than as the thing in front of it.
Exposed shell is the finish behind both.
This job is on the driveways page, in the exposed shell finish.
Services used
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