This concrete office building is designed to look like a house for demonstration of residential concrete construction methods. The Concrete House is owned by the Washington Aggregates and Concrete Association who uses the demonstration house as an office.

The owner selected the stock home plan DD109 by Drummond Designs (Drummondville, Quebec, Canada) for Blue Maxx/ABB Building Systems, an insulated concrete form company now known as Arxx (Cobourg, Ontario, Canada). Their desire was to create a model home and office made mostly of concrete and cement products. The design was substantially altered by the architect and structural engineer to accommodate handicapped accessibility, including areas of emergency evacuation, required restrooms, city sound abatement standards and the weight of boardroom concrete conference tables.

The project demonstrates a variety of assemblies and finishes selected by or with the owner that offer the benefit of cement and concrete that include:

- Footings, columns and exterior stairs and ramp - these are traditional cast-in-place.

- Insulated concrete formed foundations and walls - the house/office uses eight and 12 inch exposed anchor flange systems by Arxx while the garage uses a six-inch unexposed anchor system by Quad-Lock (Surrey, BC, Canada). This wall system offers the owner higher insulation values than code minimum, improved structural integrity and provides the sound attenuation required in the City of Des Moines noise abatement area.

- Roofing - The Monier tiles are standard pre-cast concrete providing long life, heavy texture and higher fire protection.

- Siding - Cementitious horizontal lapped siding by James Hardie (Mission Viejo, Calif.) is used offering the benefits of reduced flame spread, insect resistance, and compatible thermal movement with the structure.

- Masonry - Simulated stone by Eldorado in river rock with pre-cast concrete caps and pre-cast concrete forms accentuate the buildings base, porch, and windows.

- Flooring - Both stained and stamped normal weight concrete topping slabs were used in a variety of accents, patterns, borders, colors, and finishes selected and installed by the owner and member companies.

- Paving - Stained and stamped systems were used at the ramp, walks, and stairs for esthetics. Porous concrete paving was used at the parking lot to allow surface water infiltration in to the sandy soils.

- Countertops - The owner's kitchen design included custom formed concrete counters on wood cabinet bases.

- Accessories - The owner chose to furnish the boardroom with a poured in place concrete conference table and the parking lot with pre-cast concrete planters.