Transforming the exteriors of villa community using architectural concrete

Creating mountain landscape for the entire village using exclusively art-concrete! What a task to perform! VII MIRACULA architectural studio managed to carry out this ambitious project thanks to proprietary technology of construction. We have finished retaining walls of different lengths and heights.

Aims and objectives:

  1. to transform several hundred meters of retaining walls into cliffs
  2. to design a number of infrastructure facilities in organic-inspired style

Results: We have reshaped a vast area of a total 15 thousand square meters! Cliffs have “grown” in the village, organically complementing the landscape. There appeared several recreational zones

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We won the right to fulfill this project competing with leading players of the market. Ambitious and time-consuming work lay ahead of us: we had to erect naturally-looking concrete cliffs, that would be in complete harmony with the surrounding nature. Despite the fact that the territory we had to finish was immense, we stuck to our principles: the entire relief was made and painted by hand without implementation of stamping.

Construction of retaining walls required meticulous preparation: apart from sculptors, artists and welders, we have involved engineers, landscape designers and gardeners. Some cliffs attain the height of 12 meters, hence the major part of construction works was done on scaffolding. Many participants of this project even had to receive additional training for altitude works. During the process of carcass installment, we have incorporated hidden watering systems for plants and envisaged special niches for setting plants at different levels.

Apart from retaining walls’ decoration, one of the key aims of the project was to “turn” technical and infrastructure facilities into rocks. Close monolithic stairs were transformed into picturesque grottoes, finished both outside and inside. Open stairs seem to be carved right into the rock.

In some areas we have installed jib-doors. If you don’t know where they are, it’s practically impossible to find entrance to the technical room: doors look like part of the rock and they are opened by special hidden latch, that doesn’t spoil the harmony.

Comprehensive approach towards construction and the work of artists empowered us to achieve the desired effect: all art-objects look as if nature-born, carved right into the cliff. Elevator shafts, close stairs and engineering objects became part of the mountain relief. It’s hard to believe that those are not natural stones, but a complex construction, skillfully build by our experts.

We have organized recreational zone with tables and benches inside one of the rocks. We haven’t used natural stones. All that you see in the photos is a representation of hard work and great talent of our sculptors, that have manually created all the details of mountain landscape.

In order to diversify the relief, we decided to veneer some parts of the walls in a different way. Near the houses wild rocks are replaced by stone slabs, that have the same texture and color as cliffs. This trick creates an impression that the wall is made out of the same rock, specially treated for masonry.

Apart from extensive work on landscape designing, we took part in interior house decoration. Wine cellars now look like man-made underground caves, though it’s just an illusion. We have finished walls of wine cellars with architectural concrete, that accurately repeats the texture of natural stones frequent in surrounding mountain landscape.

Improvement of the embankment in the village was a part of infrastructure development program. We have carried out finishing of stairs leading to the sea, decorated railings of flower beds and finished retaining walls at the beach.

VII MIRACULA architectural studio has done incredible job on landscaping of the village. Architectural concrete of our own brand enabled us to build from scratch breathtaking mountain relief, seamlessly blending with the surrounding environment and skillfully adjusted to a comfortable life in this picturesque area.

Artificial mountain relief visually look identical to real rocks typical of this area, therefore the uninformed person would never guess the origin of the «cliffs». Our experience has proved that VII MIRACULA concrete blend can be used for realizing projects of any scale and complexity and the final product would be long-lasting and spectacular. The customers liked so much the results of our work, so they decided to invite our team for the next project.

How were the tallest cliffs created?

Since we had a tremendous amount of work to do, during preparatory stage we made a lot of panoramic renders that marked places of elevation changes, locations of plants and infrastructure facilities. For selected objects we have worked out detailed design sketches.

As we have already mentioned, some parts of retaining walls attained the height of 15 meters, hence we were obliged to use scaffolding. Metal frame, that forms the the shape of the future rocks, was welded to the reinforced concrete construction. According to the engineering plan at this stage we have integrated watering systems and marked places for setting plants.

Metal framework with a mesh was coated with a rough layer of art-concrete to form the lines of future cliffs. Then, it was followed by a second “decorative” layer of concrete, ment for artistic carving. Our sculptors have cut the shape of the cliff. Large scope of work hasn’t prevented us from adhering to our principles: every inch of the mountain relief was cut by hand, without usage of stamping. The entire work was done on the basis of VII MIRACULA architectural concrete. Its universal nature makes it applicable both for exterior and interior works. Art-concrete cliffs are resistant to temperature swings, pouring rains and burning sun. Final products are robust and reliable and have unlimited service life.

We removed all building constructions after we have painted the cliffs and set plants. Now there are cliffs in the village, that look as if they have always been there. Thanks to the high level of expertise and proprietary technology of construction material we managed to build from the very foundation mountain landscape that became an integral part of the composition.