unglazed homogeneous porcelain stoneware; Pico

“Pico” focuses on revealing the matter as a substance itself – the compressed sand and minerals that constitute ceramic tiles. Intended to maintain the raw aspect of traditional earth floors or handmade cement. The collection comes in three differently coloured bases (white, grey and sand), composed of specific mineral mixtures that produce surfaces with a real material depth. The subtly composed shades have a matt finish with a sensual surface feel. Together with its slightly irregular dotted texture “Pico” produces gentle surfaces that stand in contrast with the extreme brightness and slickness of today’s coating materials. This collection has a regular-irregular texture, the result is the declension of two relief surfaces: “Down” with sunken dots and “Up” with elevated dots. Both reliefs are available in their natural, monochrome base colours: “Blanc”, “Gris” and “Terre”. Furthermore, to add dynamics, two tones of colour are used, red and blue, applied as little dots in the hollow or as a base colour. The use of colours activates the relief by creating delicate shadows, turning the tiles a nuance colder or warmer.

The collection designed by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec was made with total respect for the environment. The continuous improvements made to the “CONTINUA” technology used make it suited to green buildings and represent a radical innovation of the production process. Many advantages have been obtained in terms of both quality and health and safety:

• the body used to produce the slabs contains 20% recycled materials calculated in weight (recycled pre- consumption) in compliance with the requirements of UNI EN ISO 14021:2002 Environmental label and declarations (Type II environmental labelling) and LEED for New Construction & Major Renovations Rating System version 2.2-October 2005 (Italian Green Building Council – GBC and USGBC – U.S. Green Building Council).
• great energy savings compared to conventional systems, reducing everyday energy consumption;
• total absence of glazing
• reduction in water consumption during processing. The water required in the rectification process is prevented from being released into the environment by a cutting-edge purification system which allows the water to be 100% recycled;
• recycling of all production waste: 90% is represented by mediately returned to the production cycle in the factory, is recovered and re-transformed into spray-dried material;
• recycled packaging. The packaging in the Pico collection no glues.
• the production process totally eliminates V.O.C. (Volatile Organic Compounds): these volatile chemicals easily evaporate at room temperature (benzene, chloroform, ethanol, butane and formaldehyde) and prolonged exposure to them can, in closed environments, cause both acute and chronic effects for the health.
• awarded environmental certification under UNI EN ISO 14001:2004 (ISO 14001:2004) Environmental Management System Certificate.

Images

Pico Up

Tiles

Down in red

Combinations

Pico Up

by Mutina