Building a City of Forged Antiquity, One Fake Brick at a Time

There is a company headquartered in Canada whose SOLE function is to make asphalt look like brick. No joke. Integrated Paving Concepts, Inc., more commonly known as “StreetPrint,” boasts that they are well on their way to becoming the preeminent world leader in “decorative asphalt solutions.” And as fate would have it, this renowned company has paved its way onto the thoroughfares of Chicago--part of Mayor Daley’s ongoing plan to make the City of Big Shoulders look more and more like Paris. Chicago’s streets are now freckled with fake brick crosswalks, all brought to you by the world’s most industrious and innovative asphalt decorators: StreetPrint.

Conceived in British Columbia in 1990 by a housing developer in search of an affordable decorative pavement, StreetPrint, was first exhibited to the asphalt paving industry in March of 1993 at an expo in Las Vegas. Within the year, Integrated Paving Concepts built a network of licensed StreetPrint applicators in North America. In September of 1994, StreetPrint made its Japanese debut, and in 1995 the fake bricks began a very successful European tenure at an international trade fair in Munich, Germany.

Today, StreetPrint is distributed by over 750 licensed applicators in more than 35 countries worldwide, including Italy, Spain, France, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and select regions of Central America, South America, and the Middle East. In fact, more than 55 million square feet of our planet’s surface is covered by StreetPrint--a total market value of over $300 million.

“The advantage of our product,” explains Cleve Stordy, Vice President of Government Markets for StreetPrint, “is the simple installation and, more importantly, the low level of maintenance required to uphold the integrity of the print.” Beginning in 1998, StreetPrint implemented a comprehensive training and certification program focused on developing the Applicators’ capabilities to install “the most demanding commercial and government projects.” These trained technicians place a metal template onto the fully compacted, hot mix asphalt. The template is then impacted into the street surface with a large press. Once this texturing process is complete, surface colors are applied using a durable polymer cement surfacing system. (For a complete animated demonstration click here: Animation!)

StreetPrint offers a variety of patterns including Offset Brick, Herringbone, British Cobble, Eurofan, and Frisco Cobble, not to mention colors that range from standard Brick and Slate to Hunter Green and Safety Blue. The possibilities are seemingly limitless.

“StreetPrint is a decorative process used in place of more conventional, high maintenance products,” Stordy says, “such as stamped concrete or actual brick.” Thanks to its seamless installation, StreetPrint is safe for pedestrians. The solid surface creates almost no chance of buckling. It is favored, in particular, by wheelchair-bound persons and is very popular amongst communities and facilities designed for the elderly.

But the longevity of such a superficial product comes into question when considering the harsh weather and heavy traffic patterns in Chicago. In less than 18 months, the surfacing color on a series of crosswalks printed in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood has worn away, leaving an unsightly combination of fake brick and asphalt.

“A print in a residential area with light traffic may last many years,” Stordy explains. “Whereas, a print on a freeway may last many weeks. It just depends. But the texture itself is very durable and often all that is needed is a fresh layer of color. That is the beauty of StreetPrint.”

Why, then, after just a year and a half, are the crosswalks in one of Chicago’s premier neighborhoods so ragged looking? “The words 'maintenance' and 'Chicago,'” Stordy reminds us, “are oxymorons. We have enough trained technicians in the city that touch-up jobs really shouldn’t be a problem.”

Unfortunately, at the current rate it’s only a matter of time before this illustrious and innovative technology will fade from the city streets completely and hundreds of thousands of tax dollars with it.