Success Built on Innovation

摘要

Innovation is the foundation for the success for Concrete Canvas Ltd, who this year celebrated 10 years of design and manufacture. During this time, the South Wales-based company has won a series of awards, most recently being recognized by the Wales Quality Centre with the 2014 Innovation Award. Company founders William Crawford and Peter Brewin invented Concrete Canvas (CC) while studying at the Royal College of Art in London. Their original concept was to create a 'building in a bag' - an inflatable concrete shelter that needs only water and air for construction - that can be deployed in war zones or refugee camps and be useable 24h later. The pair had to invent CC to make their Concrete Canvas shelters idea work, but it turned out that the material itself was the more commercially viable product. Today, CC is produced in roll formats and exported to more than 40 countries worldwide. It is used for a variety of applications such as slope protection and ditch and bund lining. CC is also well suited to challenging and remote environments, such as those found in the mining sector, where the fabric has been used to line drainage channels and create vent walls.