Peter Brewin and William Crawford

Peter and William have been shortlisted for their work in developing and expanding the uses for their revolutionary building material.

Concrete Canvas, based in Pontypridd, was established in 2005 to manufacture a ground-breaking material technology aslo called Concrete Canvas, which allows concrete to be used in a completely new way. Concrete Canvas is a flexible concrete impregnated fabric that hardens on hydration to form a thin, durable waterproof and fire-resistant concrete layer. This process was invented by Peter Brewin (MEng) and William Crawford (MEng) while studying Industrial Design Engineering at Imperial College and the Royal College of Art in London.

Concrete Canvas was originally developed for Concrete Canvas Shelters, a building in a bag that requires only water and air for construction. It can be deployed by 2 people without any training in under an hour and is ready to use in only 24 hours. Compared to traditional concrete solutions, the shelter is faster, easier and more cost-effective to install and reduces the environmental impact of traditional concrete by up to 95%. The company’s products are used by a wide-range of customers and exported to more than 40 countries. The company has won many national and international awards including being Wales’ only winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation in 2014.