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Trends lay the way for big imprintInnovations in texture, larger dimensions and colour are turning tiles into functional pieces of art, writes Jenny Brown.
As with anything related to fashion, in the world of applied floor and wall surfaces (manufactured porcelain and ceramic tiles rather than stone), the trends are pulling in several directions at once.
The most overt trend is the sheer size of individual tiles. Tiles are "huge, big and bigger", according to Morena Petrolo of Lapege in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
Tiles of 300 x 900 millimetres are gaining traction with interior designers but not with professional tilers, who find them challenging to apply to uneven surfaces.
Robert Conte, of Fashion Tiles on Kings Way, South Melbourne, is finding 300 x 600-millimetre tiles the most popular scale and says his home-renovator clientele still prefers the neutral colours "because they can add in visual interest later with art and furniture".
Mr Conte's buyers also prefer the high gloss of porcelain over matt finishes or ceramic tiles because while they cost about twice as much a metre (from about $40 compared with about $25 for ceramic), "polished porcelain gives that grander finish". "Porcelain is also very durable," he says.
One of the subliminal effects of using big porcelain tiles that have rectified or squared edges is that they can be very closely abutted, which leads to less-visible grout lines. Grout is out.
While "plainish" porcelain or, at most, gently patterned tiles in secondary shades are core business in the suburbs, at the experimental edges where architects and interiors professionals play, all sorts of fascinating effects are coming through.
Texture is showing up as a trend on the horizon and at Richmond's Artedomus there is a range of 600-square-millimetre Italian wall tiles by Lithos Design that are so highly etched with eye-pleasing patterns they work as stand-alone wall carvings.
At $600 each, they would want to. Consultant William Pearse says the play of light and shade that occurs on these exceptionally beautiful tiles "gives them both outdoor and indoor application as a piece of art".
Other tiles Artedomus imports exclusively from Japan's biggest ceramics company, Inax, are all about the pleasure of texture and come in all manner of patterns.
"The designs are not decorative for the sake of being decorative," Mr Pearse says.
"The texture increases the surface area and means they can be shaped around corners. It is not just about a fashionable aesthetic."
The most innovatively interesting of the Inax lines are the Ecocarat tiles that "breathe". Made of natural materials and recycled glass and priced about $80 a metre, the "fresh air tiles" can remove odours and moisture from the air, "making them ideal for bathrooms".
They cost about $80 a metre. Texture is also king in Lapege's exclusive range of tiles from Italian company Saicis.
Apart from big squares that recall the '70s, the sector leader is doing textured — almost woven-looking — metallic tiles in silvers, blues, golds and whites.
Ms Petrolo says "they are made with layers and layers of minerals and work brilliantly for feature walls". At $160 a square metre, they have real visual impact.
At the opposite end of the scale, small and often luminous glass tiles are still popular for feature applications.
And no company does mosaic wall tiles with more pizazz than Bisazza. The product range is tonally and graphically dazzling, ranging from gold on gold through houndstooth to patterns that mimic animal skins and wallpaper designs.
Ms Petrolo says Lapege has sold "heaps of the gold and white Bisazza. It is our most popular. As a piece in a bathroom, it gives the room an incredible richness."
Ms Petrolo says richness and colour are returning more generally in wall and floor surfacing.
The most generic of the new treatments is the wallpaper-like story, with some of the big-figured tiles giving the effect of flocked wallpaper.
"We've done the decades of minimalism," Ms Petrolo says. "Now people are looking for a bit of colour and movement."
?Lapege, 28-30 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9419 8777, lapege.com.au
?Artedomus, 476 Church Street, Richmond, 9428 9898, artedomus.com
?Fashion Tiles, 240 Kings Way, South Melbourne, 9699 1566, fashiontiles.com.au
The new essentials
?Big rectangular tiles
?Porcelain
?Minimal grouting
?1970s references
?Wallpaper patterns
?Texture
?Glass tiles instead of sheet-glass kitchen splashbacks
?Tiles that "breathe"
Source: Domain.com.au
Posted: 07.03.2010