12 Jun Why Medical Centers and Hospitals Choose Terrazzo?
Why Medical Centers and Hospitals Choose Terrazzo Flooring?
The floor beneath a patient’s feet is a clinical decision. Architects and interior designers specifying for healthcare facilities face a constraint set unlike any other type: infection control requirements, ADA accessibility mandates, lifecycle budget pressures, and patient experience goals. Today, medical centers and specialty clinics are emphasizing design and comfort as key factors.
Terrazzo checks off many requirements for hospital settings. For lobbies and high-traffic spaces, designers prefer terrazzo over traditional flooring systems because of its seamless style that is durable and easily maintained over the years. Terrazzo gives designers many ways to incorporate different designs. A wide choice of colors make it flexible to come up with any artwork that can become the centerpiece of the medical center, and with recycled options available, terrazzo also meets the requirements for architectural and construction professionals to obtain LEED accreditation.
Let’s take a look at how terrazzo truly makes a difference in hospital environments.
Best Flooring Materials for Medical Centers
When building medical centers, reviewing flooring materials during the design phase can help facility owners and architects anticipate project costs. Reviewing materials early on can garner a better understanding of possible flooring products that include their lifecycle assessments and performance.
According to the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI), spaces with high infection-control considerations require floor assemblies that are smooth and monolithic with an integral wall base that extends up the wall a minimum of 6″. Epoxy terrazzo accomplishes that.
When evaluating flooring options, key criteria are considered. Factors such as cleanliness, durability, maintenance, and aesthetics are reviewed. Studies have shown that high-quality materials, even though they cost more initially, are more economical in the long run. When factoring in key criteria with lifecycle costs, epoxy terrazzo presents an attractive flooring option for medical centers.
Low-Maintenance Floors That Last
One of the reasons why architects and designers turn to terrazzo is its durability. Terrazzo can last a lifetime, withstanding the wear and tear that other flooring options can’t handle. It holds up very well, and there have been many hospitals over the years that demonstrate the beauty and performance of terrazzo.
Maintaining a terrazzo floor is as simple as it only requires a regular cleaning routine to keep the floor’s shine for decades. There is no heavy-duty cleaning routine to care for a terrazzo floor. This is important as people perceive shiny floors to equal cleanliness, and a reason why you often find terrazzo floors located at a building’s entrance.
Hospitals should consider annual costs to hire cleaning staff. Planning ahead for maintenance can help facilities evaluate whether they have room in their annual budget to do cleaning routines. However, with minimal maintenance required over the lifespan of a terrazzo floor, hospital buildings can save on terrazzo compared to traditional flooring materials such as carpet and vinyl. For a 100,000 sq ft hospital, a modest regional medical center, the difference between specifying VCT and terrazzo over 40 years amounts to more than $3.2 million in savings.
Antimicrobial Surfaces in Medical Centers
Here’s something most flooring conversations: the CDC reports that on any given day in the United States, approximately 1 in 31 hospital patients contracts a healthcare-associated infection (HAI). A 2017 study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found that hospital room floors are an underappreciated source for the dissemination of pathogens, noting that pathogens on floors can rapidly transfer to hands and high-touch surfaces throughout a room.
The implications for specifiers are direct: grout lines, seams, and worn surface coatings are microbial harbors. Any flooring system that creates seams, like tile, VCT, and carpet present these problems.
Epoxy terrazzo eliminates this risk at the product level:
- Seamless surface: no grout lines, no joints, no edges where pathogens accumulate
- Impervious to moisture: Liquids cannot penetrate through the epoxy matrix
- Antimicrobial additive-compatible: an antimicrobial agent can be incorporated directly into the epoxy resin, inhibiting the growth of bacteria, mold, and mildew at the surface level.
Terrazzo Floors: Improving Patient Experiences
Evidence-based design has become foundational to healthcare architecture. The evidence is clear: the physical environment is a clinical variable, with flooring playing a significant part in the environment.
Terrazzo contributes to positive patient outcomes in three specific ways:
- Mobility and Accessibility: Epoxy terrazzo is poured at 3/8″ thickness across a monolithic, level surface. No grout lines included. For patients in wheelchairs, on crutches, or navigating IV poles, this is the difference between independence and fall risk. Medical carts, stretchers, and equipment trolleys roll freely, reducing staff fatigue and risk.
- Acoustic Environment: Hospital noise is one of the most-cited contributors to patient sleep disruption and stress. TERRAZZCO’s Acoustic Membrane 970 system, installed beneath the terrazzo pour, provides measurable sound attenuation, reducing impact sound transmission between floors.
- Psychological Environment: Healthcare design is converging with hospitality design. Patients now enter medical facilities expecting an environment that communicates care through its materiality, not just its signage. A polished terrazzo lobby with wayfinding patterns or designs can help support peace, calm, and rest, facilitating healing.
In children’s hospitals, terrazzo allows designers to embed vibrant, playful imagery, including animals, nature patterns, and story-driven wayfinding, directly into the floor plane. In adult oncology or cardiac care, the same material supports a calm, biophilic palette. The floor becomes part of the therapeutic environment.
Design Flexibility
Each hospital using terrazzo floors is different from one location to the next. That is because terrazzo offers plenty of design flexibility for architects and designers.
Aggregate options:
- Natural marble chips (dozens of colors and sizes)
- Recycled glass chips: post-consumer and post-industrial, available in translucent and opaque
- Shell aggregates for coastal or biophilic design themes
- Custom blended aggregate combinations developed in partnership with TERRAZZCO
Color Palette
Epoxy terrazzo offers unlimited colors. TERRAZZCO offers standard, semi-exotic, classic white, black, monochrome, shell, pebble, venetian, and designer series, plus fully custom color development.
Today, hospitals can create comforting and engaging environments with terrazzo floors. For example, in children’s hospitals, architects can use vibrant colors and include playful images to make the building more welcoming and relaxing.
Wayfinding Integration
Epoxy terrazzo is the most spec-accurate material for embedded wayfinding systems. Color bands can direct patient traffic to different wings. Entry medallions anchor orientation. Floor-level signage reduces reliance on wall-mounted systems.
Healthier Environments
Terrazzo is the original green flooring system and helps architects and general contractors achieve LEED points. Above all, epoxy terrazzo is an excellent choice in improving the health of hospital buildings. Manufacturers today are testing epoxy resins designed to have more health benefits for hospital buildings and their occupants. TERRAZZCO Brand epoxy resins are just one of the products labeled with GREENGUARD certification, signifying that it contains zero-VOC materials and no off-gassing during the installation and lifecycle of the terrazzo floor.
In addition to its VOC-free components, architects and designers can add recycled contents to a terrazzo floor. Options include recycled aggregates and recycled divider strips. Post-consumer glass products like wine bottles and post-industrial glass like mirror glass can be salvaged and reused in terrazzo designs today.
What to Specify: TERRAZZCO Products
For healthcare projects, TERRAZZCO recommends the following system components:
Epoxy System:
- Groutless EZpour Epoxy 158: the primary pour matrix; seamless, zero-VOC, antimicrobial-additive compatible
- Floor Aid Flexible Membrane 528: crack isolation membrane; prevents substrate movement from telegraphing to the terrazzo surface
- Vapor Shield MVS 601: moisture vapor suppression; critical in slab-on-grade installations
Acoustic Membrane 970: sound attenuation underlayment for occupied floors above grade
Green System (for LEED projects):
- EZpour Epoxy 158G + Flexible Membrane 528G + Vapor Shield 601G:
Aggregates: Specify from TERRAZZCO’s standard, semi-exotic, or custom blended options. Glass aggregate blends qualify for LEED recycled content credit.
Precast elements: Stair treads, wall base, wall panels, and countertops are available as matching precast components, maintaining aesthetic continuity across all surfaces.
TERRAZZCO is a product line of Concord Terrazzo Company, Inc., a Charlotte, NC-based manufacturer of epoxy terrazzo materials, including resins, aggregates, and precast terrazzo elements. TERRAZZCO products are specified in healthcare facilities, airports, schools, and commercial buildings nationwide.
Request samples, download the architectural binder, or contact the TERRAZZCO design team at info@terrazzco.com.