Casting Concrete Into Art: A Q&A With Concrete Cat’s Matt & Shawna Heide

Concrete might not be the first material you associate with vibrant, visionary design—but for Matt and Shawna Heide of Montreal-based Concrete Cat, it’s the ultimate creative canvas. Kicking off CBC’s brand-new docuseries ON DESIGN (now streaming on CBC Gem), the dynamic duo transforms the world’s most utilitarian material into striking, sculptural objects—infused with colour, science, and 99% Canadian materials. From collaborations with Seth Rogen to custom work for Ace Hotel and Urban Outfitters, the Heides are redefining what concrete can be. In this Q&A, we talk to the couple about their process, their episode on ON DESIGN, and the joyful weirdness of making functional art by hand. —Noa Nichol

Concrete is often seen as cold and industrial—but your pieces are anything but. How did you discover the artistic potential of this material? 

We discovered the potential of pigmenting concrete by daring to push back against what was popular in design.   Concrete Cat started in 2007, this was a period in which popular design was pretty firmly entrenched in both minimalism and brutalism.  While visiting one of our suppliers we happened to notice they had a broad spectrum of pigment options for concrete; conversely in the wild we were only seeing different versions of grey.  

We added a bunch of pigment to our order and started experimenting.  After a couple of months of experimenting we showed our colours to one of our business mentors who worked in home design.  He flatly told us that no one wants colourful concrete, people want concrete to be grey, especially if they are using it to decorate their house.  That was all the encouragement we needed to push onward. After that it was just repetition, make as many things as possible as much as possible and make every new thing a little better than the last one. 

You use 99% Canadian materials in your work. Why is local sourcing so integral to your process and brand philosophy? 

We source locally because it gives us resilience.  When international supply lines collapse due to global pandemics or trade uncertainty we can still get the supplies we need to keep working.  Relationships with local suppliers build resilient communities in ways that are hard to understand for those entrenched in digital/faceless business interactions. 

You’re an advocate for designing and producing under one roof, and even go as far as saying that designers should be hands on producing their own work?  This is rare in the design world, why is it important?

It’s fast!  We can iterate on physical prototypes incredibly fast.  The work can be designed with the means of production in mind, no concessions to scale production. You gain a greater understanding of the raw materials.  Every object produced is an opportunity for growth and incremental improvement. It comes in ways that you can’t predict, only experience.  

Your collaborations span from Seth Rogen to Ace Hotel. How do you maintain your creative voice when designing for high-profile clients? 

Our creative voice is our colour and pattern work.  We are colour and pattern experts and this expertise is what our collaborators seek so our voice is always heard.   Additionally we make it a point to dedicate multiple evenings to our practice, after working a full day for clients we will stay an additional 3-4 hours in the studio for personal work 1-3 days a week. 

Can you walk us through your “alchemy” process—how do colour, science, and form come together in your concrete creations? 

Colour is first conceptualized in a silo but form has a massive impact on pattern layouts so once we begin to pattern within a selected form we quickly see what we can and can’t do.  Science is the backbone of what we do, our concrete mix design is highly technical and developed with a research and development grant from the Canadian National Research Council.  Every casting we make is a science experiment.

What was the experience like being featured in the debut episode of CBC ON DESIGN? Did it make you reflect differently on your design journey?

We spend a lot of time alone in the studio, we don’t get out much, we don’t talk to many people.  The On Design interview was the most either of us had talked to anyone about our work for a very very long time.  I think the interview made us actually take a day to reflect and talk, which is rare.   We equate much of our work to exercise, it is very physical and we actually have to produce quite a bit of work to be able to make our budget every month.  We get sore, we get injured, we need to work out and stretch a lot to keep our bodies in the condition needed to produce the work.  The physical nature of our work is a gift.  We do what we do because we have to and it feels good to see people acknowledge our dedication to our work and to see good in what we make.

Concrete is often associated with permanence. How do you see your work evolving in the future, especially as materials and technologies change?

If we sent a Concrete Cat object back in time to ancient Greece, Egypt or Sumeria, I think they would recognize it as a man made material, the human touch is unmistakable. 

Human hands hold magic that the machines will never replicate.  We use technology for our own devices and take gains where it makes sense, but always protecting the magic; in some aspects of life we will always push back and guard a sacred space from technology.