Urbastyle

History

URBASTYLE is a long family story.  It is Etienne Laroy, who first made his carreer in concrete industry then founded in 1985 URBADAL in Aalter, near Gent.  he company was manufacturing at that time slabs, colombariums and street furniture with washed stones.

His two sons Jan & Bart joined him in the first part of the nineties to develop the company.

In 2001, they create URBASTYLE and in 2003, move to Tournai on a brand new site following all new requirements, strategically located at the crossing of main highways Lille-Bruseels and Mons-Kortrijk-Bruges, only a few hundred meters from the Belgian-French border.  The activity is developing with prefab structural elements for buildings: facade elements, balconies, stairs, ...

In 2003, the now famous head appears in the logo of the ocmpany, showing its human face as well as creative and technological.  URBASTYLE releases its first multimedia presentation CD with 3D animations.

The company adopts the following slogan: "Man's mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions" Oliver Wendel Holmes 1809-1894, doctor, professor at Harvard University and american poet.

URBASTYLE produces following CE norms.  More recently, URBASTYLE evolved, used its know-how and competences to develop a quality street furniture with high perceived value and added value.  The company made several innovations and parts pushing further the limits of concrete on the quality aspects, as well ason functions and uses.

In 2008, URBASTYLE lifts its corporate identity to be more contemporary and integrated, the company publishes quality catalogues to present its products and keeps on developing street furniture.  FASONADO brand is created to market its large size slabs and paving products.

In 2012, URBASTYLE realizes with 3POD program, a strategic design study on its activity in the objective to develop its quality, performance, reinforce its skills, develop tis future, communication, recognition, reputation.

A new look and feel is created integrating the new communication, social networks.  The company integrates the approaches of "universal design" or "design for all" for its new products in order to answer the specific needs of people with physical, behavourial or mental difficulties.

In 2014, URBASTYLE goes greener, the roofs are equipped with photovoltaic solar panels that generate about 45% of the electricity consumption.

In 2015, URBASTYLE, proud of its results, sure of its strength and willing to reach new goals, adopts a new corporate identity and a new website.

URBASTYLE can be proud of its past and of what it has accomplished.  To this day, it is the most imporatant company producing concrete street furniture in the north of Europe.  It keeps its development integrating new ideas, innovations, design, technologies, processes and machines.

Today, URBASTYLE creates new paths.  It integrates the design processes as an engine of development.  It strengthen its collaboration with architects and designers to create its products collections.  URBASTYLE innovates its products, services, materials and processes.

The cities are smarter!  The future of street furniture is evolving towards smart elements, communicating, customised, respectful of the environment, ... URBASTYLE stimulates and carries on this change with you developing its services, design advices for architects, urban planners, design studios, co-creation, co-development, furniture collections, smart tactile slabs, integration of LEDs, customization and much more.

Concrete is a plastic material, strong, performing, modern, creative.  URBASTYLE gives you all the keys to enrich it, to make it speak and to sublimate it.

URBASTYLE: your be style!

Quality - Certification

Among our personal values you'll find: experience, talent, adaptability, flexibility, imagination, innovation, team work, enthusiasm and commitment.  Our professional values include: production control from mould to finishing according to CE-standards, a brand new factory with space for extension, professionalism (to cut it short).

For the railway industry, we produce for SNCB-NMBS in Belgium, for NS in the Netherlands, we are SNCF certified and RISQS qualified for UK.

Street furniture produced by URBASTYLE is complying with EU standards for the material, mechanical resistance and also frost/defrost resistance, winter salts, etc.

Sustainability

Commitment to the environment are not words without meaning and green is not our colour by mistake!

Since a lot of our products are used in green areas such as parks and gardens, we devote extra attention to environmental friendly production methods and more.

• Our products have a huge lifetime, we involve all our people in sustainable development and reject greenwashing;
• Our producing facilities are recent, we moved from Aalter to Tournai in 2003 in brand new buildings respecting new norms;
• We work with local partners and supplies whenever possible;
• We are located in the heart of Europe, exactly between London, Paris and Brussels, to avoid long distances whenever possible and reaching 300 million population within 1000 km;
• We are located near a big motorways knot, Belgian/French border and we are away from traffic jams, thus creating a good quality of life for our workers and partners;
• We work with designers to create quality products people want to respect thus expanding their lifetime;
• We work with an eco-designer to minimize the impact of our products from the drawing board;
• We train people for quality, care and attention to details to avoid producing parts with defaults both costly for the company and the environment;
• We make special efforts to avoid the use of chemical products in our production process and for example, all water, for both mixing and polishing, is taken from a closed re-circulating supply system, thereby minimising both water demand and waste drainage;
• We do maintenance and repair to avoid to throw or buy new if not needed;
• We prepare the exact amount of concrete to avoid throwing it away;
• We recycle our leftovers of concrete to avoid throwing it aways;
• We take care of our production tools with maintenance program;
• We replace old material with new one using less energy;
• We recycle wood of moulds in wood to heat up our production buildings during winter;
• We use a sanding room with a close loop to reuse blasting sand;
• We do research on new materials and techniques to improve concrete and its resistance in time;
• We pack carefully and be sure that transporter has correctly anchored the loads in order to avoid damages during transportation and installation;
• Our roofs are covered with photovoltaic solar cells that produce 45% of our electricity.

We keep on improving ourselves, our products, our vision, it is a daily commitment.

There is no style without respect!

Respect of nature means something for us!

Architectural concrete

What is architectural concrete?

We use the term architectural concrete for an array of elements whose shape, finishing, colour, texture and excellent quality bring an essential contribution to a facade or any other construction or product.  The main characteristic stands on its almost unlimited style, colour or surface possibilities.  We can mold it in complex shapes.

Architectural concrete is:

• Mechanically very stable
• Waterproof
• Fire resistand
• Soundproof
• Thermically inert
• Extremely durable
• Ecological
• Recyclable

Architectural concrete is a mix of solid minerals (white or grey cement, gravel, sand, color pigments), water and adjuvants.  This combination gives concrete a great plasticity and to the finished product the physical and chemically properties requested...  All this at advantageous price.  Architectural concrete is one of the most interesting material on the market, economically speaking and for the usage made of it.

The cements, gravels, mixing water, adjuvants, waterproof agents, accelerators, plastifiers, ... are chosen in accordance with norms NBN EN 206-1 and NBN B15-001

Density from 2300 to 2500 kg/m³

Compressive strength at 28 days, from 30 to 80 N/mm²

Tensile strength, about 3 to 8 N/mm²

NB: concrete is a natural origin material and made of ingredients that can influence the aesthetics of the products.  White clouds can appear on bright and dark colours.  We speak of efflorescence.  This phenomena can be fighted cleaning them with water and will varish with time and rain.

Reinforcement

Architectural concrete generally needs to be reinforced with a metallic structure.  This one, in case of an accident, keeps all broken parts together and avoids sharp brake or a chute.  There is need to leave a reglementary 3 cm around the metallic structure.  Think about it when you design your parts.

UHPC concrete

We can also use Ultra High Performance Concrete.  It is a self placing concrete made with fibers.  This concrete, more expensive, provides a much bigger resistance and does not use internal structure.  But if the part brakes, pieces are not holding together thanks to the metallic structure, so there will be probably need to replace it...  Also, some national regulations impose a metallic structure, even with a UHPC concrete.