Tiles Gone Wild: Fresh Looks for an Ancient Material
This year's Dwell on Design show saw some fresh takes on an age-old surface design.
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We attend the annual Dwell on Design with our eyes peeled for new concepts in home design and architecture.
While tile is hardly a new concept—it's been used for roofing for about 5,000 years—we found plenty of new materials, new finishes, new approaches, and new technologies on display at the convention. Whether shopping for floors, walls, backsplashes or other surfaces, there were so many new products that gave us inspiration for our own homes.
Take a look at some of the exciting products on display at the 2015 Dwell on Design show.
Made in Japan, this 4-inch-wide tile is a pattern named “Shinzen,” offered by California-based importer Bedrosians. Also available in a herringbone design and in multiple colors, it retails for $17 per square foot.
Also from Bedrosians, this intriguing hexagonal mosaic pattern weaves glass tiles from China with stone sourced in Brazil. The “Panache” design is brand new to the market, and comes in at $44 per square foot.
Integrating shards of recycled glass into a resin base, this lush material from Eos Surfaces is non-porous, stain resistant, and is as durable and smooth as quartz.
Also from Eos Surfaces, here’s another variation on glass-embedded resin. The product retails for $60-$70 per square foot, which compares quite favorably to traditional concrete tiles that utilize broken glass.
One style increasingly in vogue is carved stone. These custom limestone finishes—Antique Brush and Fine Adze—have been strikingly combined into a bespoke mosaic pattern by Classic Tile & Mosaic. As tile, this would be priced about $32 per square foot.
Handsome volcanic basalt sourced from Indonesia or Mongolia is a less expensive stone to work with. Individually, these bespoke finishes from Classic Tile & Mosaic are priced about $12 per square foot.
Encaustic cement tiles originated in Catalonia in the 1850s, and the process is popular in Latin America today. These examples, created by Tesselle, are produced near Mexico City and run $15-$18 per square foot.
The cement tiles are not fired or glazed. Instead, mineral pigments are hydraulically pressed into the surface of cement. Being handmade, the patterns have slight imperfections, which is part of their character, but dimensions are fairly precise, allowing for finer grout lines.
Another example of the cement tiles from Tesselle. The Riverside, California-based company offers about 30 different designs and can also handle custom work. Note that the tiles are best suited for mild climates—they won’t survive freezing temperatures.
Gloriously imperfect, these tiles are handcrafted by artist-architect Cha-Rie Tang in the Craftsman style, in her studio. No two pieces are alike, with these simple, elegant field tiles starting at $24 per square foot.
Also from Pasadena Craftsman Tile, Cha-Rie Tang produces custom murals—perfect for fireplace settings—for $250-$450 per square foot.
This hexagonal porcelain tile, “Material,” comes in four colors and has a 3-D mosaic look to provide an M.C. Escher effect. Available through Pental Quartz, the tile retails for $11 per square foot.
Island Stone offers this seductive stone cladding, “Paragons,” an interlocking tile of rhomboids with a deeply tapering, angled relief. The tile will be available in October 2015 and is expected to sell for the “high 20s” per square foot.
This wild tile is actually plywood, printed using a proprietary process cooked up by Denver-based DENY Designs. The company has more than 9,000 designs to choose from, priced $12 per square foot, and the company promises durability. This design, “Collins Ave,” was created by Australian artist Three of the Possessed.
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