Concrete? That stuff in your driveway? Ugh! Why would you want it in your kitchen, you ask? Seeing what Fu-Tung Cheng, artist/builder of Cheng Design in Berkeley, Calif., makes with concrete may spark a counter revolution in kitchen design. Chengs singular vision elevates concrete from grungy utilitarian slab to stunning monolithic sculpture.
Example: At the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show earlier this year at McCormick Place, a model kitchen done for St. Charles Kitchen & Bath Cabinetry featured a long sweep of lapis blue countertop with the look of polished stone. The surface, textured with an organic-looking pitting, was embedded here and there with the imprints of tiny fossils. The model was stopping passersby in their tracks with its Zenlike simplicity and elegance.
A small sign indicated the traffic-stopping countertop was made of Geocrete, a name trademarked by Cheng for his concrete creations.
This particular countertop had been inspired, he later said, by an antique Chinese stone receptacle for a garden waterfall. He had created something similar, what he called “an atmosphere piece,” in the living room of a private residence.
Cheng is not the only builder or architect whose ideas are set in cement. A variety of others in the Midwest have been exploring the material’s possibilities in residential interiorsmostly in flooring and, more recently, in furniture and countertopsin the last few years.
“Most of it looks like my driveway with some pigment added,” says Bonnie Thomas, marketing director of Cheng Products, the new product division of the builder’s residential design business, an assessment unfortunately validated by a review of some of the applications.
Cheng’s work, which includes floors, walls, even ceilings, is markedly different.
“What makes Cheng unique from my point of view is he questions all the details people take for granted,” says David Fischer, a Mill Valley, Calif., commercial director, whose house and kitchen were remodeled by the artist/builder 10 years ago. “He landed here with a fresh mind.
“I don’t like stuff that looks like you could hose it down. Cheng’s work has a certain modernity and clean lines to it but still has the warmth. Yet it’s not over-the-top on a Zen look either.”
Fischer and his wife, Gigi Khoo, have one of Cheng’s first concrete countertops, which Fischer says was created like a giant sheet cake. Cheng took a couple of Chinese coins and laid them down in the form, then threw some powdered blue tempera paint into the form and then poured the cement. “By sheer luck there are some bubbles in it which gives it a real organic quality,” says Fischer.
Experimental art
Like the fine artist he is at heart, he has never stopped experimenting. For 15 years, he has worked with concrete on a custom basis, using his design and kitchen remodeling business as an idea incubator for a product line that makes Cheng’s sculptural aesthetic available to the general public.
Currently 25 showrooms across the U.S., including NuHaus Kitchen and Bath in Highland Park, represent Cheng’s brand new precast Geocrete Pelago Series countertops.
Five different models of the precast countertops offer a modular system easily incorporated into a variety of applications–as a single sculptural element in an unfitted design, as an island top or as countertops as long as 16 feet.
The modular units, inspired by pieces installed in Cheng’s custom kitchens, include elevation changes, sloped surfaces, cast-in drain channels, inlaid objects and artifacts.
Doug Durbin, president of NuHaus, exclusive dealer for Cheng’s concrete countertops and the hoods in Chicagoland, says Cheng’s “concrete product is something just rolling out. What I like the most about the countertops is they’re not a me-too product. They’re not something that you normally see. The current craze is granite and stone countertops, and everybody has them. This is a new look.
“It does not have the limitations granite has. What’s fabulous about it is each slab takes on its own character, has its own `fingerprint.’ “
A new display will be ready at NuHaus in about 10 weeks, says Durbin, featuring Cheng’s countertops and range hoods.
“Geocrete has unusual textures and you can cast colors in it you won’t find in any other product,” Durbin adds. The precast modules are available in deeply saturated hues of slate, lapis, noir, plum, moss and blaze.
Depth of color
“Cheng concrete comes out of the mold with a lot of depth and luminescence in the color,” says Thomas, a result of the combination of moldmaking, recipe mix and casting technology.
“As we played around with the concrete, making mistakes, coming up with bad batches and not really knowing what we were doing, we found a way to produce that depth of color consistently,” says the 51-year-old Cheng.
A clue to how he makes his concrete look so cool texturally can be found in his comment that “whatever you pour concrete against, it replicates. We poured it on glass and it looks like glass. We poured it on plastic bags and it looks like plastic.”
He is in the process of writing a book, “Concrete Countertops: A New Paradigm for Kitchen Design,” to be published by Taunton Press at a future date, in which he promises to be generous with his secrets. “It’s a how-to book but with beautiful shots of all of our work,” he says.
What Cheng’s modular units don’t come with is the sinks, says Thomas. “Customers pick a unit, and we tell them what sink works with the mold.”
Suggested retail for these modules is $8,400 to $10,800. The units are not priced per lineal foot but per model, she says, since the cost of 2 extra feet of concrete is negligible.
Through the back door
Cheng sees his concrete counters, both custom and modular, as “practical art pieces,” not surprising from someone who graduated from the University of California with a degree in fine art.
Finding it hard to make a living as an artist once out of college, Cheng went into building and remodeling with a couple of buddies. He painted and did photography and sculpture on the side.
“I came into architecture through the back door,” he says. As he taught himself plumbing, electricity and a little drywall, he says, “I started slowly blending the aesthetic with the practical and doing bigger jobs.”
A breakthrough came in 1985, when he was given a kitchen remodeling assignment with a $30,000 budget. “It was not a lot to do a whole kitchen, but it was still something,” he says. “I used every bit of it to stretch.”
His first concrete countertop was created for a very practical reason, he says. “I wanted to make this tile-lined mosaic counter and sink. Most people use marine-grade plywood, put down a paper and grout layer, then a cement layer and then put the tile on top of that. I had a lot of jobs where the grout had leaked and I had to tear the whole thing out. I cast a mold, made [the counter] structural, and put the tile on that. It made a wow kind of sculpture.
“That is how it started. Didn’t make any money, but I had fun with that job.”
That kitchen attracted media attention, which brought more work. “I got a lot more freedom each time and as a consequence, each job was more sophisticated,” Cheng says.
He bought, he says for a song, an old dilapidated shack that became his laboratory and his home. “The 1-ton concrete counter in my kitchen for the most part looks like a big sculpture. I embedded some fossils in it and just had fun.”
Cheng compares his custom design work to haute couture in the fashion world, and his new precast modules to ready-to-wear. The modules are “easier to handle. Anybody with a little common sense can install it. It is about as complicated as a granite installation.”
The 21st Century kitchen
While totally spontaneous in its origins, Cheng’s work dovetailed into powerful trends in the design world. For one, the contemporary kitchen is changing into the 21st Century’s family room.
Homeowners are seeking new looks for the kitchen, but want something more timeless than trendy. Time-poor lives are leading to a fascination with minimalism and the Eastern spirit in design. Some consumers want the kitchen to be an art piece in itself, leading to an experimentation with new materials and forms that turn the room into a kind of walk-in sculpture.
“Cheng’s philosophy is, when you are doing something minimalist, the details and the materials are everything. You can’t hide anything with ornament,” says Thomas.
“The concrete is not a substitute for [DuPont] Corian or granite,” she adds. “That is not what it is about at all. It is a piece of beautiful sculpture with a lot of texture and warmth.” Asked to define his style, Cheng says, “I really appreciate modern architecture, but I am not a strict minimalist because I believe my work is more tactile. I don’t mind a little funk and spontaneity. “
His countertop inventions were followed by sleekly Modernist but organically warm stainless-steel hoods, which retail from $7,100 to $12,740.
“The hoods that are generally available are very prosaic and quite unimaginative. We found ourselves going to local stainless-steel manufacturers and asking, `Can you make this?’ People who saw the hoods in our kitchens then would call us and ask, `Where can I get it?’ Well, you can’t,” we’d tell them. Then they’d ask, will you make me one?’ ” (Cheng is now in negotiation with several Merchandise Mart showrooms to show his hoods.)
“The total package of what I’m trying to do is something that will last,” says Cheng. “Here’s my own kitchen, which looks as fresh as it did 12 years ago. It doesn’t age in a bad way, it doesn’t look like yesterday’s material. As a designer I want to do things that hold up.”
LIVING WITH A GEOCRETE COUNTER
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about Geocrete
countertops:
Q: Can concrete chip, flake or crack?
A: Corners and edges can chip if struck by a hard object. Hairline cracks also can develop. These are not structural failures but a property inherent to the material and easily can be filled if necessary with an epoxy filler provided in the proper color available from Cheng Products.
Q: Can I put a hot pot directly onto a cast concrete countertop?
A: Concrete is heat-resistant but can be subject to thermal shock if a red-hot object is placed directly upon it. Like granite, the exposed area may flake or chip away if too much heat is applied. Fu-Tung Cheng recommends using trivets for hot cookware. His Alcatraz model has cast-in brass rails for just such a function.
Q: Do concrete counters stain?
A: Concrete has more or less the same porosity as marble. Acids, especially red wine, lemon juice and vinegar, can etch the surface. However, like aged butcher block or marble, a patina on a cast concrete product actually can enhance the character of the surface. A nontoxic penetrating sealer and wax will help to resist stains but it is not acid-proof. Cleaning up soon after spills is the best way to minimize staining and etching.
Q: What sort of routine maintenance is needed to keep the finish?
A: Very little. The luster you see on a Cheng Geocrete surface is due to the formula mix and casting process, not achieved through polishing and buffing. Cheng countertops come out of the mold looking very nearly as they do installed. A light buff with a bit of wax every month or so will even out the surface by getting rid of fingerprints and will put a little kick back into the luster.
Q: Can concrete be used as a cutting surface?
A: Cast concrete is not a substitute for a cutting board. Cheng recommends the Farallon or Siargo countertop models, both of which include custom poplar cutting boards.
— Mary Daniels
