Five ways to customise surfaces with single-colour tiling
Single colour tiles might look simple on the surface, but with a little creative thinking, the full range of possibilities starts to emerge. Here are five original ways to apply them.
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By Mosa, H+O Design, and James Wormald
April 26, 2022 | 10:00 pm CUT
Margaux Keller’s Le Coiffeur hair salon floor combines honeycomb tiles and poured concrete in a mixture of materiality. Photo: Laure Mélone for Margaux Keller
The best way to ensure you get something truly original, is to do it yourself
VitrA’s Retromix tile mosaics combine bold colours of similar hues to create sparkling surfaces with artificial depth
Create depth with one colour
A single block of colour doesn’t sound especially creative or flexible, but the eight available hues of VitrA’s Retromix collection group together tiles with slightly changing shades, creating a textured blend effect. The tiles’ depth and bold colours leave an unforgettable mark on viewers’ retinas, stealing their attention before drawing them in.
Contrasting mosaic tiles fall in Berlin’s U-Bahn (top) and chaotic herringbone patterns liven up Lotto 16’s easy-to-clean floor (middle, bottom). Photos: Royal Mosa (top), Filippo Poli (middle)
Strike with contrasting patterns
Although the same effect has been applied to the stair and escalator areas of Berlin’s Eisenacher Strasser U-Bahn station, the platform’s Mosa tiled pillars, also textured with a blended mosaic of green, benefit from additional contrasting yellow and orange segments, sprinkling down from the ceiling like rainfall.
Le Coiffeur’s shared material flooring (top) and the Momentum hotel’s upholstered seat and wall (middle, bottom). Photos: Laure Mélone for Margaux Keller (top), Atlas Concorde (bottom)
Mix up materials
With wall-to-wall ceramics, Lotto 16’s floor is easy to clean – useful given its sandy location – and the bright colour-fast lava stone tiles will hold on to their vibrancy. But it’s not the only tile material available. Alternative options including wood, metal, stone, glass, cork and various fabrics can mingle together to tell stories of tactility as well as colour and pattern.Tile materials including wood, metal, stone, glass, cork and various fabrics can mingle together to tell stories of tactility
Milton’s cornering tabletops, concrete tiles (top) and wooden panels (middle), and Héctor Ruiz-Velázquez’s liberally-applied tiling (bottom). Photos: Ari Hatzis (top, middle) and Pedro Martinez (bottom)
Reorientate
With many ceramic tiles suitable for both wall and floor application, the same colourful or patterned section can spread like viral creativity, jumping from one orientation to the next. The Milton bar in Melbourne, Australia, for example, achieves the effect in multiple instances and materials. A linear pattern of wooden wall panels extends to form an arched ceiling along with camouflaged shelving above, reclaimed wood tables are bent up to attach menu hooks, while a customised triangular pattern of charcoal, white and grey concrete tiles pour onto the floor from the bar’s front.
Mambo Unlimited Ideas’ tiled Caldas tabletop (top) and the Perfect Darkness concept space with tiled furniture (middle, bottom). Photos: Giorgio Possenti (middle, bottom)
Tile unexpected places
By tiling furniture and other non-traditional areas, a new focus and decorative element can be brought to previously mundane interior elements. Either to complement furniture surfaces with the same colour, pattern and even material as the walls and floors, or to provide an intriguing contrast, tiled furniture presents an opportunity to personalise functionality. Mambo Unlimited Ideas produce a series of tables and sideboards, such as the Caldas range, that incorporate relief tiles to complement any interior style, but a similar effect can be achieved with designers’ own choice of tile, too.Project Gallery
