The Brookside neighborhood is home to some of Kansas City’s hippest residents and urban professionals. Brookside was the city’s first suburban shopping area. It has a charming historical feel that is enhanced by the architecture of the shops. Starbucks design studios are located around the world so that their designers can fully understand the communities they serve. The mission of each designer is to create a spectacular Starbucks café experience that is steeped in the local culture and reflects the unique characteristics of each neighborhood.
The General Contractor, J.E. Foster Building Company, contacted Bomanite Licensee, Musselman & Hall Contractors, LLC about a new Starbucks Coffeehouse being built in the Brookside community of Kansas City. Starbucks was considering the incorporation of new flooring material in a prototype store. Starbucks believes a coffeehouse should be a welcoming, inviting and familiar place for people to connect, so they design their stores to reflect the unique character of the neighborhoods they serve. They are also interested in the way design can connect everyone to sustainable building practices and provoke thoughtful questions and engagement with the built environment. To guide their building and design efforts, Starbucks uses the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® certification program as a benchmark for success. In addition to reducing energy and water consumption, they incorporate reused and recycled materials wherever possible and often use locally inspired design details and materials in their stores.
The general contractor chose the local contractor Musselman & Hall for assistance after some research and several references. Musselman & Hall produced a series of Bomanite Custom Polishing Modena SL samples for the client’s consideration based on a tile sample provided by the Starbucks design team and an overall design concept. The samples immediately impressed the Starbucks staff.
Bomanite’s unique Modena System is is a trowel applied cementitious overlay that contains zero VOC and no solvents in the chemically hardening product with attributes to its “Low-Emitting Materials” LEED credits. Modena is polished to a highly durable finish and is commonly used to renovate floors that are unacceptable candidates for polished concrete. It can be applied as thin as 1/8” or as thick as ¾” dependent upon existing elevations. Modena can be either highly decorative with aggregate exposure or simpler with light aggregate exposure similar to finely ground concrete.
The Modena system contributes to additional LEED accrual points in “Innovation by Design” by its ability to renovate an existing concrete slab that would otherwise be unsuitable for concrete polishing. This provides specifiers the ability to use polished concrete much as they would traditionally select a manufactured tile or other flooring system only without the maintenance requirements. Bomanite Modena is more economical than typical terrazzo, is breathable which minimizes moisture vapor issues, can be colored in any color, lessens the amount of product brought to a job-site compared to stone or tile and provides all the benefits of polished concrete.
The relatively small project (600 SF) utilized the Bomanite Nickel Gray Integrally Colored Bomanite Modena SL system. The polished overlay was placed at approximately ½” thick. The overlay was ground and polished to a 400-grit finish. Musselman & Hall coordinated with Starbucks artist who utilized a portion of the floor as a canvas to paint a fun and colorful mural. This is the first Starbucks location in the region to utilize the Bomanite Custom Polishing Modena SL flooring system. The overall decor is highlighted with warm wood, copper, natural lighting, and even an cool neon sign. This project won the Award for 2018 Bomanite Custom Polishing Project – Honorable Mention.
The finished floor is a simple, but elegant representation of the design flexibility of decorative architectural concrete and Bomanite’s diverse sustainable offering of floor systems.
Let us help you find the perfect solution you imagine for your Bomanite Architectural Concrete Project. Come see our Design Center and realize the possibilities. Visit our Official Website:
www.edwardsbomanite.com