BESPOKE PROJECTS SPANISH CITY SLICKER Architects used ultra-thin, marble-effect
porcelain slabs to turn a run-down Spanish apartment into a sleek and stylish city
hotspot. This unconventional use of ceramics helped the project to achieve a Special Mention in the Tile of Spain Awards.
For one fairly average apartment in the Spanish town of Albacete, it was easy to attract new owners with its fabulous central location. Inside, however, it was in desperate need of refurbishment and suffered from being a warren of rooms.
Deciding to give their new property a complete overhaul, the owners chose architects Torrado Arquitectura for the project based on a recommendation. This was no mean feat for the professionals though, with the clients only providing a very minimal brief of ‘modern and elegant’.
After studying the home’s layout, María Fernández Torrado found that the apartment in Casa Artium lacked a sense of aesthetic coherence throughout the various spaces.
Commenting on the task, María explained: “A large portion of the central area was used exclusively as a thoroughfare.
“These passageways roamed around the property and had no natural lighting. Worse still, all of the corridors were rather featureless and full of doors.”
The aim of the project was to turn this residual space into a focal point by creating a sculptural element to the interior and subtly illuminating it for maximum impact. This was achieved by cladding the hallways with extremely thin large-format ceramic slabs that would cover the ceilings as well as the walls. Porcelanosa’s Xlight 120cm x 250cm formats in a 6mm thickness was the ideal material for the job, creating a strong visual with its marble-effect texture, whilst its ultra-slim porcelain kept it light.
The biggest challenge was applying the porcelain slabs to all the planes. By positioning the pieces in the hallways at a lower level than the rest of the ceilings in the home and projecting part of these pieces over their supporting structures, a marble-look installation gave immense presence to the corridors and created the illusion of a bigger volume. This was further enhanced by hiding LED lighting around the perimeter and highlighting the sculptural element.
The outcome of the project proved to be a marble masterpiece, not only delighting the clients but also attracting the attention of judges in the Tile of Spain Awards, achieving a Special Mention.
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Each year, Tile of Spain – the voice of the Spanish tile industry – holds a prestigious annual award for the innovative use of ceramics in architecture and interior design. When the judges awarded their Special Mention for this project, they were most impressed by the not-so- conventional use of ceramic tiles to transform an interior and create the illusion of a bigger space.
www.tileofspainawards.com
www.tomorrowstileandstone.co.uk
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