When I attended the Surface Fabrication & Design Expo in Las Vegas in February, I noticed a significant reduction in the number of companies displaying new products on the trade show floor. In past years, I’ve written columns focusing on new products useful to countertop fabricators that I’ve discovered at the Expo. But in my opinion, the real strength of this year’s Expo was in the outstanding lineup of speakers featured at the seminars.

Covering topics ranging from sustainability and designing with concrete to cutting-edge fabrication techniques, the speakers brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the show.

‘Solid’ Architecture

Martin Funck is a partner in Rosskopf & Partner AG, the renowned German solid surface fabricator, founded in 1988. In 1991, the company expanded by opening a solid surface fabrication facility in Hennersdorf, Saxony, a formerly East German town near Dresden. In 1997, the company opened a world-class quartz countertop fabrication facility in Obermehler, Thuringia, another former East German town.

According to Funck, Rosskopf & Partner AG has grown steadily over the past 20 years, basing its growth strategy on automation, technological innovation and strict quality standards. The firm now has about 180 employees, sales equivalent to $38M per year, and exports nearly 50% of its production.

After recounting his company’s impressive history, Funck got into the exciting part – a description of recent projects that feature world-class modern architecture and extensive use of precisely thermoformed solid surface components. Two in particular caught my attention.

First is the Hotel Puerta America, built in Madrid, Spain. Amazingly, each floor is designed by a world-class architect, and is thoroughly modern and completely different from the other floors. Fifteen design firms collaborated, and six specified extensive use of solid surface materials. For example, Iraqi-born architect Zia Hadid clad the majority of the surfaces she designed with swooping curves of solid surface materials that form walls, furniture, bath fixtures and even part of the ceilings.

Other floors were designed by British architects David Chipperfield and Kathryn Findlay, Ron Arad, who is an Israeli native, Jean Nouvel of France and March Newson of Australia. Many of the surfaces were jet black or bright red, and anyone who has experience with thermoforming knows that working with such intense colors requires the highest standards of quality control. Materials were furnished by LG Hi-Macs, and Rosskopf & Partner AG did all of the fabrication.

The company’s latest masterpiece is the Leonardo Glass Cube, built in 2007. Leonardo is the brand name of the innovative German company Glaskoch that manufactures glass tableware sold worldwide. The Glass Cube is part of Glaskoch’s new corporate identity, and is the firm’s new 31,000-sq.-ft. showroom and seminar space. The design is a stunning attempt to integrate the interior, exterior and landscape features of a building into a combined image. Though the basic structure is a transparent rectangular glass block set among green lawns and pastures, the building and its site are adorned by a sinuous network of white sidewalks, curved white exterior panels and white interior tree-like free-form structures, all of which complement each other and create a dramatic, unified look. Both the curved exterior panels and the interior free-form structures were thermoformed out of LG Hi-Macs by Rosskopf & Partner AG.

An online search for either of these projects will yield a visual feast highlighting cutting-edge solid surface fabrication techniques.

Concrete Designs

Fu-Tung Cheng is a kitchen designer, craftsman and leading expert on concrete countertops. Born in Los Angeles as the son of a Disney artist, Cheng cast his first concrete countertop in 1985, and has spent two decades refining and perfecting his techniques. His first book, Concrete Countertops: Design, Form, and Finishes for the New Kitchen and Bath, became a bestseller, and now, through Cheng Concrete Exchange, he offers training, products and marketing assistance to novice concrete countertop fabricators everywhere.

He expresses his design philosophy this way: “I look for a balance between clean, contemporary lines and an expression of craftsmanship that illustrates or reveals a sense of time, place or culture.”

Cheng’s presentation showed how to transform ordinary sacks of concrete into an upscale surfacing material. He cautioned, though, that there are many things that can go wrong, and that a deep understanding of the material must be combined with a genuine design sensibility in order to achieve success. For those interested in designing with concrete, his books, DVDs and seminars are a great place to start.

Organic Design

Eric Corey Freed is a young architect who is a leading contemporary advocate of organic architecture, a design philosophy with roots going back a century to pioneers such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Gustav Stickley. Dedicated to environmentalism and sustainability, Freed is a forthright advocate of the Green Building philosophy. In his well-organized and tightly argued audio-visual presentation, Freed reviewed the role that our homes and other buildings play in energy use, water use and the consumption of raw materials.

In a persuasive, low-key fashion, he sketched out a philosophy of design based on learning from nature’s principles, which is intended to inspire a deep sense of personal responsibility in order to bring about a better future. Rather than a generic overview, he personalized his presentation for the audience by including a survey of a variety of green countertop materials recently introduced to the marketplace.

Freed’s firm, organic-ARCHITECTURE, is based in San Francisco, and can help its clients achieve certification of buildings through the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program administered by the U.S. Green Building Council. His firm’s Web site offers a wealth of information about environmentally responsible architecture. Freed’s latest accomplishment is the newly published Green Building and Remodeling For Dummies from Wiley, which brings his design philosophy in a simplified form to readers.

While I’ve profiled just three of the speakers, there were actually something like 25 who spoke at the 2008 Surface Fabrication & Design Expo. Much credit for this illuminating seminar program goes to industry veteran Russ Lee, a former countertop fabricator and former editor of SolidSurface magazine, who helped to assemble this outstanding team of speakers.

Mark your calendar now for next year’s Surface Fabrication & Design Expo, scheduled for Orlando, FL on February 19-21, 2009.