David Allen Company wins national terrazzo award for West Palm Beach tower

By AI, Created 10:26 PM UTC, June 01, 2026, /AGP/ – The National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association gave David Allen Company a 2026 Honor Award for its work at Forte on Flagler, a 25-story luxury condominium in West Palm Beach. The recognition highlights a custom gradient floor, wall-to-ceiling terrazzo finishes and integrated lighting that helped unify the tower’s public spaces.

Why it matters: - The award spotlights how terrazzo can function as both structure and design statement in ultra-luxury residential projects. - Forte on Flagler’s public spaces relied on terrazzo to deliver a museum-like finish across floor, wall and ceiling surfaces. - The project shows the level of coordination now required when high-end design calls for custom material transitions, lighting integration and precision alignment.

What happened: - The National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association gave David Allen Company a 2026 Honor Award for its terrazzo installation at Forte on Flagler in West Palm Beach, Florida. - The award was presented May 13 at the NTMA annual convention. - Forte on Flagler is a 25-story tower completed in 2025 with 41 half- and full-floor residences. - Arquitectonica designed the building, and Jean-Louis Deniot of Paris handled the interiors.

The details: - David Allen Company’s scope covered the main lobby, executive offices, mailroom and connecting corridors. - The centerpiece is a hand-blended organic gradient floor in one epoxy color that moves through five custom marble blends. - The gradient follows the ceiling soffit lines instead of a grid and reverses across the floor. - Installers used no divider strips in the field. - Each color transition was feathered by trowel, wet-poured in stages and hand-blended on-site. - The gradient was poured in one continuous shot each day. - Floor joints were held to a maximum of one-eighth inch and aligned with portals and wall cladding. - Terrazzo extended vertically into three-quarter-inch architectural wall cladding. - Radius door surrounds and portals included concealed door frames. - Wall cladding used bullnosed edges, three-inch overhangs, precise returns and integrated lighting. - The project required coordination among terrazzo installers, millworkers and door crews. - Nearly 200 feet of 12.5-inch poured-in-place cove base was installed with a quarter-inch brass top cap containing integrated LED fixtures. - David Allen Company developed that brass strip system on-site after it was not included in the original design documents. - Solid cementitious precast columns weighed 400 pounds each and were custom-fabricated, hand-placed and precisely aligned in the lobby. - The company spent six months working with project director Jonathan Wiser-Scherding of JLD on layouts, elevations and technical drawings. - The team completed multiple full revisions of shop drawings and precast detail sets. - David Allen Company produced five rounds of mockups and air-freighted each set to Paris for approval.

Between the lines: - The project moved beyond standard terrazzo installation and into bespoke product development, especially in the floor gradient and LED base details. - The repeated mockups and long preconstruction process underscore how tightly luxury architecture now depends on fabrication and installation teams. - Wiser-Scherding said the terrazzo became an essential component of the building’s architectural language, while Jackson Smith called the project one of the most challenging and rewarding in the company’s history.

What’s next: - The NTMA said its annual Honor Awards recognize outstanding terrazzo installations by member contractors based on design achievement, craftsmanship and technical execution. - A full list of this year’s 17 Honor Award recipients is available in the association’s award materials. - David Allen Company will continue to market its experience in large-scale terrazzo work after installing more than 65 million square feet since 1920.

The bottom line: - Forte on Flagler earned national recognition because its terrazzo was not just decorative; it was built into the building’s identity from floor to ceiling.