‘Two Strands of Yarn Create Strength’ For 2015 Terrazzo Job of the Year

“It takes excellent craftsmen in terrazzo to do what our guys did,” Corradini stated. The project combined a high degree of precision with natural, handcrafted elements.

The project was the fabricators’ first time to work with water-jet cut terrazzo and stone, an innovative option that eliminated the need for conventionally used metal divider strips to separate colors. While the artist had not specified water-jet cutting, CORRADINI’s team chose that technique to better achieve the design intent. The result recalls the style of traditional palladiana.

Corradini’s team carefully prepared the work in-house to make the hands-on process seamless for the craftsmen in the field. They wanted to avoid any guessing, with a straightforward, simple plan, so the crew could focus on craftsmanship in the field. Terrazzo slabs were poured and water-jet cut in CORRADINI Corp.’s warehouse, along with granite slabs. The 9,000 water-jet cut elements were then taken to the job site and placed by hand. The next colors of terrazzo were then poured in place around them.

“The precision is amazing on the pieces,” Ms. Stanley noted.

The first floor, installed in the 315×30-foot station platform, presents the geometric black-and-white “Haak’u/Acoman Connection” design. Incorporating 4,000 triangles of water-jet cut black granite, it is based on a traditional Acoma pottery pattern. The vibrant orange bands represent the sand dunes in northern Arizona. A treasured family brooch was the model for the flowers.

Corradini’s crew bent every divider strip by hand on the job site, which allowed for greater precision on such complex designs than if they had water-jet cut the strips, as is frequently done in the industry. No part of the job was subcontracted, no parts were pre-manufactured, Corradini stated: “It was 100 percent our guys.” They made any necessary adjustments to the patterns onsite. “We have more freedom and more opportunity to make it exact that way,” he said.

The divider strips forming the flowers’ turquoise eyes were originally shaped as perfect circles, but the artist asked for less perfection, wanting to avoid measures and duplication. She requested an adjustment to more natural, abstract circles.

“In weaving and in my culture, nothing is perfect,” she explained. “It is an intuitive process that gives things a very human touch.”

The second floor, on the footbridge, introduces more contemporary elements. Over 5,000 torpedo shapes in five different sizes in turquoise and black are integrated into the 200×33.5-foot floor, named “Diné/Navajo Connection.” The design is based on the concept that “two pieces of yarn create strength,” Ms. Stanley explained, and incorporates her maternal grandmother’s weaving designs and an abstract Diné wedding basket. “It’s what I grew up with, so it was a natural reference, innate and authentic for me.”

The successful realization of certain elements of the designs depended upon perfect precision. If any dimension of one element in the symmetrical gray-and-white diamond pattern had been inaccurate, it would have skewed the entire pattern. The lineal feet of divider strips exceeded the square feet of terrazzo on that particular section.

An epoxy mortar was used to create a perfectly flat floor, with a one-eighth-inch in 10 feet tolerance to reflect light smoothly and beautifully from the surrounding by floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Completed in three months, the job occupied 8-14 craftsman at any given time. The project was a source of extraordinary pride for the entire team, even before the Job of the Year award was announced.

“I have never seen a person more proud of his work” than the foreman on the job, Corradini said. “And he deserved every ounce.” Corradini also told how one of the team members doing the work came and thanked him for letting him be a part of such a fabulous project; he wanted to show it off to his family.

“The handwork was 100 percent perfect on those floors,” Corradini declared. “Best job we have ever done, in my opinion.”

The project manager corroborated that claim: “Corradini went the distance to make the art the best it could be,” as did the general contractor, McCarthy Kiewit, Rothman reported. It was, she added, “hands down, one of the smoothest processes” in her nine years in construction project management.

“The artist really cared about this project; every inch meant something to her,” Corradini said. “Making her happy and seeing her walk on the finished floors with her family and friends and with the city officials—it was very rewarding.”