Diespeker & Co is a UK business with over 140 years of experience working with natural stone including marble and granite, and associated materials such as terrazzo. Based in South London we have a purpose-built factory where we create beautiful flooring, worktops, cladding, furniture and more. We are also highly regarded experts in creating bespoke terrazzo.
Creating a sustainable and beautiful solution
Tom Massey is an award-winning garden designer and landscaper whose work has become synonymous with holistic intentions. Tom won his first Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal in 2016 and has been a regular there since. He is also well known for his appearances on the BBC Two series Your Garden Made Perfect, which is how he came to the attention of Diespeker MD, John Krause. John was impressed with Tom’s work, energy and ideas and contacted him with a view to designing his own garden in Wimbledon as part of a major refurbishment project.
Terrazzo is not an especially sustainable product in terms of composition, using chunks or chippings of quarried marble in a cement or resin base. Tom began challenging John to think of an alternative option, a way of disrupting the traditional terrazzo sector.
In a nutshell, the concept they came up with was to use rubble from demolished London buildings as aggregate within a cement-free and therefore ultra-low carbon mix to create a more eco-friendly material. The product was named: Rubblazzo, Made of London.
For Diespeker’s experienced bespoke artisan team familiar with using traditional production methods to create extraordinary materials and designs from marble, granite and semi-precious gems, the idea of making a beautiful product from unwanted rubble was something quite new. It took several prototype versions to create a material that is robust as well as attractive, using the content of London rubble which can include brick, cement, stone and more.
Rubblazzo is now ready to be used in commercial and residential projects looking for a quirky, unique style married with a care for the environment. Rubblazzo is ideal for exterior use, for garden slabs and tiles, seating, table tops and fountains, although it can also be used indoors, such as for kitchen countertops.
Rubblazzo is also certified with the Made in Britain badge, this registration helps identify and verify the geographic provenance of the goods made in the UK. Our ambition is for Rubblazzo to become the most commercially viable sustainable terrazzo available in the UK. And we hope you will be along for the journey.