Shellcrete driveway with freeform turf islands
Sarasota, Florida
A full-frontage driveway of pale Shellcrete, cut into large slabs and freeform islands with artificial turf running between them, laid up to the entrance of a white modern house.
The challenge
A full-frontage driveway on a low modern house is a lot of hard surface in front of a building designed around horizontal lines. Poured as one plane it competes with the architecture.
What we did
Broken into large slabs with artificial turf running between them, and then — the part that makes this job — the geometry loosens as it leaves the street. Straight staggered joints near the road open into freeform organic islands approaching the entrance.
Each island is its own pour with its own edge, which is considerably more formwork than a rectangular grid and is why most driveways are not shaped this way. The turf joints do the same job control joints would, so the movement is still planned; it simply does not read as a grid.
The result
The frontage is green and pale rather than a slab, and the surface widens as it approaches the door instead of running straight at it. From the street the house sits in landscape rather than behind pavement.
Finished in exposed shell — a driveway is where the grip is worth the texture.
This job is on the driveways page, in the exposed shell finish.
Services used
More Shellcrete work
Sarasota
Shellcrete pool deck and coping
A polished pool deck divided into large panels by control joints, with Shellcrete coping mitred at the edge and set dense with whole shells where it meets brick-pattern blue-green mosaic and the water.
Shellcrete
Sarasota
Shellcrete driveway and entrance steps
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.
Shellcrete
Sarasota
Shellcrete courtyard on a diamond grid
An enclosed courtyard laid as a diamond grid of Shellcrete slabs set into artificial turf, running to a round spa with a Shellcrete coping ring and a curved planter of succulents over black pebble.
Shellcrete
Sarasota
Polished Shellcrete lanai and pool deck
A covered lanai floor polished to a high gloss and laid in large panels that pick up the reflection of the sliding doors, running out to a screened pool deck with a raised ledge carrying a linear fire feature.
Shellcrete
Sarasota
Polished Shellcrete balcony and lanai
A polished Shellcrete balcony running to a black cable railing, and a pale lanai floor at the sliding doors of a white clapboard house, both finished flat enough to read as a single plane.
Shellcrete
Sarasota
Entrance steps in fresh Shellcrete topping
Entrance steps and a covered terrace under a freshly applied pale topping, smooth and not yet ground, with the timber edge forms still fixed to each riser.
Shellcrete
