CO33 Founding story and birth of OPUS PRIMO

CO33 Founding story and birth of OPUS PRIMO

In 2014 my friend Ralf had the following request, which was as easy as it was tricky: "Gregor, can you build me a bench for our golf course?"

"Just a bench," as it was called back then, but of course not just any. It should be made of concrete to replace the wooden predecessors.

Because: wooden benches usually do not last long and if you want to keep them on golf courses in the long term, they are stored away over the winter. This of course means a lot of effort at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, which you would not have with a concrete bench. In addition, concrete lasts so much longer. You only buy them once!

Disadvantages were also found quickly: concrete is heavy, thick and not very chic. The shapes are usually angular due to the simplicity in the formwork.

Therefore, I formulated completely new expectations for MY bench:

Light enough to be transported with two people and not to damage the grass and subsoil.

Heavy enough to protect from simple theft or moving around.

Thin enough that it does not interfere and visually blend into your environment.

Round in shape to match the soft contours of nature and golf.

For me, these were all points that were atypical for furniture made of concrete.

So I had the theory. The next step was the practice. The design was immediately in my head and then pretty fast on paper. For the implementation, I needed a perfect mold and an equally perfect concrete recipe, which together would allow a first-class concrete surface. A special challenge was the structural engineering calculation.

The reinforcement should serve to accommodate the flexural tension, which retains the shape when putting weight on the bench. However, with a concrete thickness of only 3cm for my bench, this was a problem. The ratio of concrete covering to iron would be much too low.

So stainless steel reinforcement? This would have been done, but since I wanted to fill up my forms upright, the reinforcement would not be able to keep their intended position. The iron would have been everywhere except where it should be!

Another idea was a recipe with fibers, which would have been the obvious solution, but far from it. The fibers affect the flowability of the concrete enormously and would have only reluctantly covered the wide filling path. So all the work was in the concrete; the material that withstands a lot of pressure but does not flex.

So before my project Concrete Bench failed because of a lack of reinforcement, I developed a recipe that enabled us to realize the bench in its final form and to create thinner yet resistant components. The result was UHPC-ultra high performance concrete - without fibers!

After overcoming this hurdle, the bench only had to be cast successfully; which was eventually achieved masterfully after a number of attempts. That was the birth of OPUS PRIMO – Latin for FIRST WORK. This is how the OPUS collection came to be in 2015 - a series of elegant furniture that can be easily transformed and combined. So OPUS PRIMO in combination with wood and steel became a table, a shelf, a cupboard, a wood storage, a TV cabinet and in its smaller version, a chic bedside table.

Other concrete furniture in classic design and exceptional accessories made of concrete followed. All of these can now be purchased in our brand new online shop along with great interior design ideas and information about the material concrete.

In the meantime, we continue to work on new designs and comprehensive service for our very critical customers, and we are always happy to assist and advise them.

MARQUE ET LOGO

Que signifie CO33? Pourquoi y a t-il des lettres et des chiffres et de surcroit le signe  „plus“?

Pour vous répondre je préfère commencer par le tout début.

Ma marque devait coller au produit et au départ on pensait à « COBE+ » --- « COncrete BEnch and more ». Le signe « plus » signifie aujourd’hui encore « and more » derrière le nom de la marque. Le banc en béton ne devait être que le début, car je rêvais de créer une ligne très large de produits exclusifs en béton.

Le logo était donc posé, le graphisme aussi et puis …..Rien  ne se passa comme prévu : lorsque j’ai déposé la marque et que j’ai demandé s’il était possible de l’enregistrer au niveau européen j’ai eu une réponse négative de la France. En effet, il y avait déjà en France une marque sous ce nom. Bien évidemment la déception était immense. Alors que faire ? Oublier tous ces projets ? Le fruit de mon travail, mon nom de marque si génial et qui parlait de lui même….

Je ne savais plus que faire, difficile à présent de me décider …….tout reprendre à zéro. Nouveau nom, nouveau logo… « CO » était évident, cela signifie Concrete (le mot anglais pour béton). Le « 33 » doit toutefois être clairement expliqué. Il est dérivé du nom de l’entreprise de béton « OBB » que j’ai reprise en 2011 et dont le nouveau logo suite au rachat était « O33 ». Donc dans ce cas pourquoi ne pas placer tout simplement le « C » devant « O33 ». Cette idée était parfaite et convenait même bien mieux que le nom « CoBe » initialement prévu.

C’est mon ami Jan, le fils de ma chère femme qui a eu l’idée d’intégrer au logo « CO33 » ce qui pour moi représentait le cœur du cœur de ma création. Et de fait l’observateur attentif reconnait dans la lettre « O » du nom, la forme de mon premier meuble en béton : le banc. Et c’est ainsi que le logo me rappelle toujours (et désormais à vous aussi) le début de l’histoire des meubles CO33 : un banc en béton à la ligne mince et fine et au design exclusif de l’année 2012…..