Windsor Gate, Coquitlam: stamped asphalt laneways for a townhouse community

Windsor Gate is a masterplanned community in Coquitlam: a development that sets a high bar for exterior finishes and common area aesthetics. We were specified to deliver the laneway surfaces for the townhouse component of the project.

The brief required a surface that felt premium: the kind of finish that distinguishes a well-designed townhouse community from generic tract housing. That meant stamped asphalt with colour coating: not bare concrete, not painted asphalt.

Stamped asphalt, then colour coating

The process for a project like Windsor Gate starts with the asphalt substrate. Standard asphalt is placed and compacted by the paving crew; our work begins after that. The StreetPrint® stamping system impresses a defined pattern into the hot asphalt (cobblestone, herringbone, slate, or other textures depending on the design brief) while the material is still workable.

After the asphalt has cured, StreetBond® coatings are applied in the specified colours. The coating bonds to the asphalt and follows the surface texture created by the StreetPrint impression. The result is a surface that reads as a premium hardscape, visually close to natural stone or brick, at a fraction of the cost and with better performance in BC's climate.

The StreetBond seal also protects the asphalt from UV and moisture, extending the service life of the laneway surface compared to uncoated stamped asphalt.

What the photograph shows

The lede photograph is the crossing on one of the Windsor Gate streets. The roadway is imprinted in a herringbone brick pattern and coated in a red-brown, curb to curb. Across it, the crosswalk is a cream brick field bordered in dark charcoal, with a small chevron emblem at its centre in the brown of the street. The whole thing is one asphalt surface: the pattern and the colours change, the material does not, so there are no joints to heave, no sand to wash out and nothing for moss to take hold in. The project record holds the frame at full size, and we returned for a second phase of laneways matched to this one.

The systems

Square One installs both under our stamped asphalt service; the figures are the manufacturer's. Its published facts on StreetPrint: the pattern is pressed into the asphalt with a heated template, so there is nothing to peel and nothing to re-lay; it goes onto new or existing asphalt; the texture is slip-resistant, snowplow and de-icing salt safe; retroreflective options exist for crosswalks; and the manufacturer publishes a 10–20 year service life. On StreetBond: a water-based acrylic coating in more than 50 standard colours plus custom mixing, with an anti-skid aggregate and an 8+ year life cycle, refreshed rather than replaced. The product pages have the specifications: StreetPrint and StreetBond.

Developer-scale projects

The specification of this system at Windsor Gate reflects a pattern we see across well-regarded BC developers: when the project has design standards, stamped and coated asphalt is the value-engineering solution that doesn't look like one. Residents get a surface that looks like it belongs in a premium development.

For a developer or strata

• Bring us in at the paving stage. The pattern is imprinted into asphalt the paving contractor has just placed, so the scope belongs on that schedule. On an existing strata, the same finish goes over sound asphalt; the site visit decides whether the surface will take a pattern.
• Use the crossing to organise the street. A contrasting field with a border, as at Windsor Gate, tells drivers where to expect people without a sign; the laneways gallery shows crossings, aprons and lanes done the same way.
• Write the pattern and colour into the strata's records. A future phase or a recoat should be a match, not a guess.

For developers specifying laneway and hardscape surfaces for townhouse or strata projects across BC, send a photo and a postal code to office@squareonepaving.com, call 604-612-6209, or use the contact form. We come out, look, and put a written quote together.