Photo Credit: Maria Artemis
Cities across the country are finding new, vibrant ways to revitalize downtown areas. Often, plans include beautiful greenspaces and gathering spots to attract city dwellers and visitors. As this trend continues, landscape architects are increasingly choosing granite for its benefits—i.e., durability and design options, as well as versatility in finishes and other treatments.
Historically, granite has been a material of choice for any project intended to stand the test of time. Now, as cities are looking at their aging, vacant buildings or other unused spaces, they want to turn these areas into something beautiful and useful for the community. Parks and plazas are critical to the redevelopment of many cities, and granite is ideal for these hardscape areas, particularly when sustainable design is desired.
Granite’s small footprint and long life cycle make it appealing to a sustainability-minded design team. And when the hardscape is remodeled, beautiful stone remains to be reused for other purposes. In some instances, a redevelopment of an urban hardscape area might involve the re-use of granite for the next phase or re-purposed foran entirely new project.