Photos courtesy of Concrete Surfacing Systems

Vertical Concrete Staining at the Potawot Health Village
This health complex looks like a traditional Native American village. But the buildings are not wood — they're tilt-up concrete. Read on to find out how a Sacramento contractor used L.M. Scofield dyes and stains to create this fabulous illusion.
by John Strieder

The Potawot Health Village in Arcata, Calif., greets patients with the look of a traditional Native American village, right down to the thick redwood planks that form the walls of the buildings.

Visitors might be even more impressed once they take a closer look at the redwood planks of Potawot. They aren't wood at all — they're tilt-up concrete.

Sacramento contractor Concrete Surfacing Systems Inc. used reactive stains to duplicate redwood's rich shades for the 12 buildings in the complex. "It looks exactly like wood," says company president Rod Scott. "We actually had guys call us up saying they had walked up to a building and they could swear they could pound a nail into it."

Scott and his crew photographed a preserved Indian village on state park land in Trinidad, Calif., to study the colors and textures of the historic buildings. "The huts were built out of redwood and carved with deer antlers," Scott says. "Every plank was different."

In many cases, Scott's team simply duplicated the patterns of the wood, plank by plank, on the tilt-up structures. The colors of cut redwood, along with painted-on knotholes and other features, were recreated with an array of L.M. Scofield's stains and dyes, supplied by Spec-West in Sacramento.

The stainers tried to make each concrete wall look like a unique set of panels. Muse Concrete Contractors Inc. of Redding, Calif., did its part to create the illusion by developing tilt-up wall forms that replicated the rough, uneven sides of the old huts.