SANDY HUFFAKER
Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and the terrazzo design she created for the seaside deck of her Del Mar home. She worked with Australian artist David Humphries on the project which has earned an award from the American Terrazzo and Mosaic Association.
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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
– William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
Known internationally for her fashion and textile designs, Zandra Rhodes also has designed tableware and linens, jewelry, etched-glass windows, opera sets and costumes – and now a beachfront terrazzo patio for her home in Del Mar.
The terrace project was borne out of necessity. When the El Niño storms battered the California coast during the winter of 1997-1998, the oceanfront residence of Rhodes and her partner, Salah Hassanein, was threatened. Afterward, they had to rebuild their sea wall, and Rhodes was inspired to design the magnificent terrace to celebrate.
Terrazzo, which is enjoying a revival, was a natural paving choice for Rhodes for many reasons. The centuries-old technique that mixes glass and marble chips into colorful mosaics would stand up to the rigorous seaside environment with the salty air. It allows users to create intricate, detailed patterns, something very important to Rhodes.
“Other possibilities for materials would have been a board deck or tiles,” Rhodes said, “but it would have been impossible to impose my patterns on a wooden deck, and it would have taken as much effort to achieve that in tile as it was with the terrazzo.”
Rhodes collaborated with Australian artist David Humphries, who is known for his terrazzo creations throughout Australia and at Rhodes' Fashion & Textile Museum in London. After she created an abstract design on paper, Rhodes drew it on the concrete base with chalk and looked down on it from her upstairs balcony to get a perspective on how it worked.
Humphries worked out the final details on the computer, and they then cut the major shapes out of Styrofoam sheets to make a template to hold the terrazzo, a mix of stones or glass chips in portland cement.
Together they hand laid the terrazzo in a design that embodies the universe. In the pattern you can see the solar system, the Earth, rivers of water, and under the sea.
Or maybe it's the four elements: air, water, earth, and fire (represented by spiky shapes that also represent the shadows of the New Zealand flax planted along the edges); or an echo of the rhythms of the sun, sand and sea.
On another level, it's yin and yang, light and shadow.
Motifs echo the designs from her textile creations: Rhode's signature wiggles that in this context can be interpreted as twining vines or flowing water; seashells set in spirals and repeating patterns originally conceived for her shell prints in 1972-1973; or orbiting planets that recall her “Star Wars” Collection of 1978.
As she said in her book, “The Art of Zandra Rhodes,” “ ... everything I do has a link somewhere in the past, and is not easily discarded.”
Like her textiles, this terrazzo design is complex, stimulating, fascinating, a celebration of life – and gorgeous. It's not surprising it won the 1998 Honor Award from the American Terrazzo and Mosaic Association.
Color and space
Five colors dominate the pattern: salmon pink, ochre yellow, shades of green, and hues of blue with small sections of pearly white. “Over the years, the brighter blue has faded,” Rhodes said. “Originally it was a strong cobalt color, but it's much paler now.”
The spacious terrace is 100 feet long and only 40 feet wide. To break up the long, narrow expanse and to create a series of outdoor “rooms,” Rhodes divided it into four distinct spaces defined by changes in level. Each smaller patio is comfortable and human in scale.
She also set the terrazzo design at an angle, adding a dynamic sense of motion as well as fooling the eye into perceiving a wider space. The sea wall, built at a height to make comfortable additional seating, encloses the space, providing a sense of protection and privacy.
Rhodes can seat 250 people on the terrace if she uses the entire space to hold 6-foot round tables for the occasion. Cooking is one of her passions, a way to relax, and she also loves to host intimate dinner parties. For these gatherings she brings out furniture and cushions from inside.
“I bring out folding tables and low Indian chairs with lovely cushions,” she said. “I also have an embroidered Indian tent that's fun to set up. Standing umbrellas also are nice, but you can't have them up in winter or the wind will blow them over.”
A round, terrazzo-covered table made in Australia lives permanently on the patio, along with a concrete table and four chairs. Rhodes found the plain concrete furniture locally, and painted it to make it look “like princess chairs and tables.” The dominate color in the polychrome decorations that highlight the pattern molded into the pieces is pink – like Rhodes' trademark hair color.
The seaside setting with salty air and buffeting wind is hard on most plants. Given the environment and the fact that she often works in her London studio, Rhodes has opted for a narrow palette of tough, care-free plants.
Dominating the plantings are New Zealand flax (Phormium), which are large strap-leafed, evergreen perennials with a striking, spiky profile. They fill the narrow bed that borders the neighboring property, and the suggestion of their spiky shadow is incorporated into the paving design.
Sea lavender (Limonium latifolium), which grows wild along the coast in San Diego, adds splashes of purple floral color both in pots set on the sea wall and in planting pockets beside the terrace. Blocks of turquoise blue industrial glass set along the sea wall add more color as well as a dynamic play with light.
The word terrazzo is derived from the Italian word for terrace. Terrazzo paving dates to 15th-century Italy. It was developed as a way to use discarded marble and glass chips left from making stone and glass squares used to create mosaic pictures and designs. The chips were set in clay to anchor them and then smoothed with a hand stone to achieve a flat surface.
The paving technique was brought to America by European craftsmen in the late 18th century. It was extremely popular, used extensively in monumental structures as well as in prominent homes. George Washington's Mount Vernon has terrazzo paving in many of the rooms.
In the 19th century, terrazzo paving fell out of favor until 1871, when American David O. Saylor patented an equivalent of Portland cement. Concrete made it much easier to create a suitable foundation for the composite paving, launching a renewed interest in the medium. More new developments in this century, such as the discovery of epoxies, polyesters, latex and acrylics, have made terrazzo flooring more versatile and affordable than ever.
Consisting of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass and other materials, it either can be created in place, or composed of prefabricated sections. Suitable for both indoors and outdoors, it is an easy-care, durable floor surface that is resistant to heavy abuse.
A terrazzo floor consists of three layers. The first is a level 3-to 4-inch-deep concrete slab that serves as the foundation. When the newly poured concrete foundation is firm enough to remove the forms, an additional 1-inch layer of sandy concrete is added on top. Then metal divider strips are embedded wherever there will be a joint or a change in color in the terrazzo.
In the case of Rhodes' terrace, Humphries invented a unique method to get the complex pattern, such as the spirals and the squiggly, narrow lines of blue and green, without the brass stripping. Instead of metal strips, he cut strips of Styrofoam and poured the different colors up to the foam shapes.
The final layer consists of the mixture of stone and glass chips that are blended in a colored cement slurry and spread into each panel. Workers may press additional marble chips, shells, mirrors, or other durable decorative embellishments into the mixture. Finally, a lightweight roller is used to smooth the surface.
Once the terrazzo is thoroughly set, the surface is ground, polished, and sealed to make a lustrous finish.
Terrazzo maintenance is easy. Generally, all it requires is sweeping or mopping with a neutral cleaning solution mixed in water as specified by the manufacturer. Do not use harsh cleaners or soaps containing crystallizing salts, harmful alkali, acids, or sweeping compounds that contain oil. The oil will penetrate and discolor the floor. To avoid abrasion, sweep regularly.
“Anything by the sea self-destructs, even terrazzo,” says Rhodes.
Because of the corrosion from salt and the abrasion from sand-covered shoes and feet, she finds it necessary to have the surface ground, polished and then resealed once a year.
Rhodes and Humphries are available for commissions to custom design terrazzo flooring. Rhodes can be reached at (858) 792-1892, or e-mailed at zandra@zandrarhodes.com.
Catriona Tudor Erler is a freelance design and garden writer.
