K-Form Creates Curvature Splendor
Back in 2014, Bob Banka, president of Concrete Management Solutions (CMS), a pervious concrete consultant and NRMCA Certified Pervious Craftsman based out of Medina, Ohio was contracted to complete a circular driveway comprised of pervious concrete that wasn’t your standard design.
During the San Diego recession eight years ago, Gregg Hamann of Hamann Construction kept his workers on the payroll by having them build a state-of-the-art house on his land in Julian, California. The home was to be his weekend home as well as a “show house” for clients. Architect and Project Manager, Paul Giese, along with Hamann designed a concrete house, 4,200 ft above-sea-level that had a zero-carbon footprint and fireproof technologies, including fireproof metal shutters on the windows, a photovoltaic solar array helical wind turbine, and a 14,000- gallon cistern at the to capture surface water run-off for irrigation, toilet flushing, and firefighting. The driveway was to be a circular driveway using pervious concrete (a porous surface that is composed of specially designed concrete with a 19% void structure with an underlying stone reservoir.) The driveway design included five different colored sections to match the house.
This type of circular driveway construction and finish had a number of challenges, but experienced pervious concrete consultant Bob Banka found a key solution in K-Form Concrete Formwork System, a 100% recycled plastic shuttering system that’s left in place and allows for continuous pours. Asked how he found out about K-Form, Bob said
“I had seen K-Form in an article years ago. When this project came to us, I decided to choose K-Form. Without K-Form, there was no other way to do this job.”
Typically used in straight runs, Bob and his team played around with the K-Form rails to create the required curves and then used a quick-drying concrete mix to secure the forms in place. No stakes were required allowing the pond liner underneath the stone recharge bed to harvest rainwater to remain intact. The liner held until the concrete was placed two months later. During that time, timber strips were placed over the top of the K-Forms to allow the workers access, proving the strength of K-Form which showed no deflection. A tele-belt was used for concrete placement within the pre-set K-Forms. A Lura Lightning Strike Screed was used for concrete placement which does a better job of screeding pervious concrete. The K-Form did not dislodge, again proving its strength. To finish the job, K-Form’s removable top strip created a control joint, eliminating the need to wet diamond-cut joints, saving additional time, and creating a much cleaner edge to seal.
It took only 4 days to complete the pervious driveway, proving K-Forms versatile and innovative design works up to four times faster than traditional methods. Overall, a unique and stunning driveway was created, made achievable with K-Form.
