Natural Stone: Sustainability in Pattern and Design

The new collection of floor and wall tiles by Grassi Pietre, a company that has been extracting and processing Vicenza stone from its quarries in the Berici Hills since 1850, evokes a story that can trace its origins to Ancient Egypt but is also infused with the atmosphere of Vienna and Venice.

When the practice owned by Daniel Debiasi and Federico Sandri - Debiasi Sandri - designed this new collection, with eight different patterns, they used fragments and recovered stone, and then exalted the colors of these natural stones and marbles. Each option in the collection exploits the varied nuances of Vicenza Stone with modular elements and two- or three-dimensional geometric patterns, such as the irregular trapeziums of Thebes. The first of the models designed by Debiasi Sandri uses the Grigio Argento variety of Vicenza Stone and draws on the stacked blocks typical of that ancient city on the Nile River. The next option, Gradient, really exalts the material nature of stone, using parallel shading and scratches, to produce excellent solutions for floors and walls in Pietra del Mare marble, which is a sedimentary mix that often incorporates small fossils.

In the Fez design, Verde Guatemala marble creates an intriguing dialogue with the ivory white of the Bianco Avorio variant of Vicenza Stone, producing a cladding that plays with the asymmetrical nature of modular intervals and shapes. The use of repetition in the Bump and Finn cladding is less random, using a play on lightness and darkness to create a 3D effect. Vienna clearly evokes regular wooden floors, such as parquet, while Venezia has a more triangular approach, recalling the delicate color hues of Venice and combining these with Verde Guatemala marble. The final option is Drop, in which the inherently chiaroscuro nature of Grigio Alpi produces an interplay of flexible and dynamic hexagons.

As a whole, the collection is versatile, using a range of designs and materials to provide a solution for almost any surface, from the home to the contract industry.