OUR STORY
For more than three decades, Concreteworks has explored what concrete can become.
Our practice brings together design, material research, technical rigor, and the knowledge of the hand. In collaboration with architects, designers, artists, builders, and other creative partners, we shape concrete and its allied materials into enduring elements for architecture, interiors, landscapes, and everyday life.
The scale and application of the work may change, but our approach remains constant: respect the material, understand the idea, and make it well.
Mark Rogero in the original Emeryville workshop, circa 1991.
Pioneering Concrete
Since 1991
Concreteworks began in 1991 with our founder, Mark Rogero, handcrafting commissioned pieces in his Emeryville, California, workshop. While living and working in that space, Mark built his first concrete countertop—an early experiment that helped define the direction of his practice.
After studying architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Mark carried his love for the built environment into a deeper exploration of concrete as a material. What began as a small, hands-on practice grew through experimentation and collaboration, expanding from individual objects into furniture, interiors, landscapes, architectural facades, and large-scale installations.
Through endless collaboration with Bay Area designers and builders, Concreteworks became part of a broader movement rethinking concrete’s role in contemporary design—developing new approaches to composition, mold making, casting, and finishing that revealed the material’s expressive potential alongside its technical demands.
That investigation continues today. After more than 30 years, we remain drawn to concrete for its honesty, permanence, adaptability, and ability to retain evidence of how it was made. We have only begun to explore its potential.
The Team Behind the Concrete
Concreteworks is shaped by an interdisciplinary team of designers, architects, engineers, mold makers, craftspeople, technicians, artists, and project managers.
Their knowledge overlaps throughout the process. Design intent, material behavior, engineering, fabrication, finishing, coordination, and delivery are considered together rather than in isolation.
This exchange is central to how we work. We approach our clients as collaborators and thought partners, combining decades of practical experience with ongoing research and a willingness to question familiar solutions.
Technology allows us to work with greater precision, but judgment remains essential. Every project depends on the experience of people who understand when to control the material—and when to let its natural character remain visible.
Together, we turn ambitious ideas into lasting forms.
MANOS by Concreteworks
MANOS is Concreteworks’ product atelier: an expression of more than three decades of material research, fabrication knowledge, and collaborative design distilled into objects for everyday life.
Designed and made by hand in Northern California, each piece reflects the inherent qualities of concrete through subtle differences in color, surface, and texture. These variations are not concealed. They reveal the relationship between material, maker, and user.
MANOS carries the Concreteworks practice forward through sculptural, functional objects made to be touched, used, and lived with.
The Work Continues
We remain committed to making work with integrity: thoughtfully designed, technically resolved, materially honest, and built to endure.