Just this morning, we flipped out a concrete countertop sink run cast in our “Slate” color which includes an integrated drainboard, as do many of our kitchens. New England residents love drainboards - maybe it is a hearkening back to our collective childhood, sitting in a grandparent’s kitchen with the big , old slate or soapstone farm sink and the wide pitched planes to each side where the dishes were set to air dry.  They are eminently practical and a perfect showcase for the three-dimensional versatility of artisan concrete. Each one is different from the previous, some subtly and some dramatically.

This drainboard uses an elemental reference to flowing water by incising ripples into the drain plane,  which is set to the right and slightly back from the undermounted sink aperture. This introduces a pleasing touch of assymmetry to the composition (any Slave to Rhythm would agree…). Immediately outside the New Hampshire window in front of which this concrete countertop will repose are the client’s lush perennial gardens; they are symbolized as well using the movement and vining shapes of the rippling grooves. Another reference wrapped into the design is the heavy roundover on the cabinet doors and their round wooden pulls.

Once installed atop the natural wood cabinets in the owner’s home, it will be apparent that this particular example of functional art was fully intended to be exactly there and nowhere else. Now, that’s integration!