laissés bruts de décoffrage

09:49 Jul 30, 2018 

The following note was left under my pillow by the Tooth Fairy, to whose greater wisdom and experience I must defer:

"I'm not convinced by your "left fair-faced" ...

"The usual term for "brut de décoffrage" is "as-struck", i.e. immediately after the forms are struck (removed - from the good ol' bad ol' days when they had to be whacked with a sledgehammer to detach them (wooden forms) from the concrete). It DOES usually mean "rough", but with modern forms that need not be the case, and concrete cast in fair-face forms with a liberal dosing of release agent will be fine-face as-struck. If specs call for concrete to be as-struck, further finishing is either not requested (not visible, generally) or not required (because the forms give the required finish)."

Unfortunately, tooth fairies (though generally paragons of patience) are occasionally given to fits of exasperation with foolishness. This can lead them to post ironic or (when really provoked) sarcastic comments and, as a result, they can't directly post answers.

07:29 Jul 25, 2018 

'unfinished' really means 'not having had any specific finish applied to it', which is what you get with cast concrete that receives no further treatment; of course, as you say, depending on the type of shuttering used, it may still have quite a smooth surface anyway.
Note that they start off talking about 'non-visible' areas...

06:47 Jul 25, 2018 

but more accurately if means:

"left as it is/without any further work being done on it"

so it in fact it IS "finished" and depending of what kind of "coffrage" [and concrete mix] is used , the surface could in fact be nicely smooth, or really looking "finished".

if the visual appearance of the concrete "laissé brut de décoffrage" is deemed to be of no importance, then it could be left looking really "rough and unfinished", but that's not always the case.

"La régularité de la texture et de la teinte des parements ..." would suggest that in this ST the Client do care about the visual aspect, so they probably wouldn't like it looking "rough and unfinished".

12:56 Jul 24, 2018 

I think it just means rough or unfinished.