The Tile Association's Tile Awards presentation Ceremony took on a dynamic new look this year as it moved out of Birmingham and into the Hilton Metropole in central London today (25 April). And there were some spectacular stone projects among the winners.

Some of the projects in the Tile Awards presented today (25 April) would have been perfectly at home in the Stone Awards being presented in December, as the boundaries between the stone and tile sectors become ever less distinct.

The Tile Awards, presented annually by The Tile Association (TTA), had a new look this year. The ceremony was given the theme of ‘London Calling’ as it moved from Birmingham to the central London location of the Hilton Metropole Hotel. It was also moved from the evening to the middle of the day, with a sumptuous lunch as well as the Awards presentations.

The new look to the Awards coincided with the appointment of marketing company Smart Marketing Works as the secretariat of TTA. Smart Marketing Works says the aim of the changes is to make the Awards more accessible to a wider audience and give them a higher profile.

The Awards ceremony was hosted this year by ITV weather presenter Emma Jesson and was sponsored by BAL, Fila, James Hardie, Mapei, Rubi and Schlüter. Once again, money was raised for a donation to The Children Today Charitable Trust, which helps young people with disabilities.

One of this year’s Tile Award winners is probably the most spectacular project ever entered in the Awards scheme – that of Tate Britain, where London stone contractor Szerelmey carried out the work, although most of it is not natural stone but terrazzo supplied by Agglotech UK, the British arm of the Italian company of the same name based in Verona.

Not far behind Tate Britain in grandeur is another of the winners, the new Library of Birmingham, the largest public building of its kind in Europe that has more than 1,800m2 of Brazilian slate flooring throughout the ground floor circulation areas and into the adjoining Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Tate Britain won the ‘Best use of tile within the leisure or hospitality industry’ category while the Library of Birmingham won the ‘Best use of tile in a commercial contract’ category.

Tate Britain, the home of 500 years of British art, is undergoing a multi-stage, £45million transformation to create new spaces for display, education and social activities. Using advanced manufacturing techniques, the terrazzo supplied by Agglotech was used for the main spiral staircase, the many different patterns of floors, arches, reveals and walls and incorporated curved skirting, plinths and some stair balustrades.

The terrazzo is made in 2½m cubes using natural marble that would otherwise be waste. It is heavily compacted to allow the complex shapes and patterns required to be made to tight tolerances and consistency. The blocks were cut to size in the company’s factories, assuring accuracy in a controlled environment, reducing waste and improving site installation times.

Szerelmey’s Peter McColm, Contracts Manager, says: “There were some complex patterns and cutting requirements with tight tolerances to meet throughout this project and Agglotech was able to achieve these, both on time and on budget. We were very pleased with the overall quality of its material.”

The work entered in the Tile Awards was carried out in the oldest part of the Grade II Listed building – the Millbank Entrance, Rotunda and galleries in the south-eastern quadrant. Szerelmey completed two packages, including a new staircase and flooring, valued at £1.5million.

The staircase is a major addition, designed to alter the way the public circulates around the building. A large opening was made through the floor of the main entrance rotunda to allow the staircase to be inserted. Constructed of an elegant, curved steel form with a stainless steel and glass balustrade and 25 steps, the stairs are tiled using terrazzo with marble chips and black nosings.

A second new staircase is slightly less grand but has 66 steps and, again, an elegant curved form.

Both staircases were complicated to install and fix given the size of the precast pieces used and the accuracy required.

The second of the packages involved 2,000m² of flooring, including a stunning geometric design that extends through the lower level of the museum in the canteen, public areas and lower rotunda.

The flooring at the top of the grand staircase has a complicated fleur de lis pattern that echoes the design of the staircase balustrade. In addition, 500m² of agglomerate skirting, dados and reveals were installed.

A further 800m² of terrazzo flooring on the principal and upper levels and the marble mosaic flooring in the entrance hall were cleaned and repaired.

BAL products were used for fixing. As mentioned, BAL sponsors the Awards and had entered two of the product-related categories – ‘Excellence in marketing’ (which it won with its ‘Tilers Demand’ campaign) and ‘Best innovation’ (in which its fibre strand technology lost out to the Ardex Natural Stone Range).

For Tate Britain, BAL’s Product Support Technicians visited Szerelmey to demonstrate the correct use of BAL Stone & Tile PTB. BAL also answered the installation team’s questions on some of the other products it would be using – Thickbase (a single-part self-smoothing levelling compound), Prime APD (an acrylic primer for walls and floors) and Supercover Rapid Flex (a fast-setting flexible adhesive).

The Library of Birmingham, meanwhile, has a particularly good example of a stone floor, laid by WB Simpsons & Sons (Midlands) using Brazilian slate supplied by the Coventry company called Keystone at the time but which has since changed its name to Kinorigo. The Brazilian slate was chosen for its mottled grey appearance, exceptional durability and inherent non-slip properties.

The new library lays claim to being the largest public building of its kind in Europe. As well as the Brazilian slate on the ground floor circulation areas expanding into the adjoining Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the slate has been used on the third floor in the lobby to external terraces.

Again, the products of one of the sponsors (this time Fila) have been used, notably maintenance and protection products, including FilaW68, a non film-forming sealer that protects without altering the appearance. It was used after the floor had been cleaned using Fila Cleaner. Both products are part of Fila’s Green Action brand – Fila Green Line – which includes everything from pre-grouting protectors and surface cleaners to protection and stain removal solutions. The range was recognised in its own right in the Tile Awards in the ‘Best environmental initiative’ category.

The high-tech, Post-Modernist Library of Birmingham was designed by Delft-based architect Mecanoo. It stands in Centenary Square on the west side of the City. Carillion was the main contractor.

The £189million development was opened in September by Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for standing up for the right of girls to go to school.

The new ‘super library’ was built to replace Birmingham’s old central library. Externally, it comprises a series of box-shaped structures, clad in gleaming black and gold circular ironwork arranged over a glazed ground storey. It is topped by a cylindrical structure, which houses the Shakespeare Archive.

Inside, circular voids lined with books provide a sight-line to the top of the building. The book rotundas are ringed by circular balconies giving access to the bookshelves, while neon-lit escalators and a glass elevator provide views of the library from all nine levels.

The library houses a collection of a million books, including a Shakespeare First Folio. There are more than 200 public access computers as well as theatres, an exhibition gallery, music rooms and a café. A roof garden, which includes a wild flower meadow, offers skyline views over the city.

Carillion has won several awards for its work on the Library (which has a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’) including the 2012 Guardian Sustainable Business Award for Social Impact and, together with Birmingham City Council’s Employment Access Team, awards in two categories of the 2012 National Skills Academy Awards.

Now the library has also won a Tile Award. Four tile formats were used – 200 x 200mm, 200 x 400, 400 x 400 and 400 x 600mm. They were laid in a traditional Romaans Verband pattern.

With such immensely prestigious projects as Tate Britain and the Library of Birmingham in the running, it must have been difficult for other entries in those categories to get a look in, which is a bit harsh because there were other projects that in other years might well have received top honours, including more stone projects.

The ‘Commercial Contract’ category, for example, included an entry of Whittles Jewellers, where Casa Ceramica was the contractor, chosen by the jewellers after the company’s successful completion of its previous store.

Polished Jerusalem stone was used on the exterior of the store in 600 x 300mm tiles. Casa Ceramica worked alongside Tilemaster adhesives to ensure the stones will stay in place. It was specified to be fixed on to 18mm ply, but Casa Ceramica suggested the ply should be clad with a construction board to provide a better key for the adhesive and a more stable substrate. Standard setting Extrabond with a 2-1 mix of Flexmaster Additive was used.

The tiles were carefully cut from the slab with mitred edges to wrap round outside corners and create the effect of solid stone. To finish, Grout3000 Jasmine with a 3-1 Flexmaster Additive was used.

Each Whittles sign was illuminated, which meant drilling 58 holes with millimetre precision so the cables were in the correct position for the individual letters.

Inside, Casa Ceramica fitted 600 x 600mm porcelain to the walkway, which snakes from the front to the back of the store.

For an area dedicated to the Omega brand 800mm x 800mm porcelain tiles were supplied as part of the Omega specification.

Interior display cabinets were clad using a combination of Laminam Blend Noce & Avorio. Due to restrictions on site, the 3m x 1m porcelain slabs had to be delivered to a warehouse where Casa Ceramica had set up a workshop. Laying out and cutting the Laminam again required utmost precision.

Another interesting project in the ‘Commercial Contract’ category was by the company Stone & Ceramic at 60 Holborn Viaduct – it was mentioned in the report on Stone & Ceramics’ expansion in the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist (NSS April 2014).

The project makes spectacular use of Purbeck Blue, Spangle and Capstone from Purbeck quarry company WJ Haysom & Son on the floors, stairs, walls (including a secret doorway) and, with a lightweight honeycomb backing, in the lifts. There is also a Purbeck Blue reception desk.

Centrally located opposite Smithfield Market in the City of London, 60 Holborn Viaduct is a modern office development with a curved glass and steel façade that is home to Amazon UK.

Stone & Ceramic was appointed by main contractor Balfour Beatty to design, procure and install the stonework package. It arranged for the project team to visit the Purbeck quarries in Dorset to select the stone, then designed all the detail of the stonework.

There were more outstanding uses of stone to be seen in the ‘Best use of tile in a domestic environment’ category, where every short-listed project included stone.

Casa Ceramica won the category with its work at Salisbury House Farm that involved glass inlaid into Botticino limestone.

Director Duncan Cook says of the work: “As a company we are always working on all kinds of projects, both commercial and domestic. We are involved in some amazing installations but it’s not often that you will come across a project which makes you stand back when you’re finished and feel overwhelmed by the sheer effort and skill put in to make it what it is.”

The bathroom was designed by Suzanne Mercer of Kettle Design using honed 600 x 300mm Botticino inlaid with 20mm square glass. The first job was to select the stone which would be used for the features, making sure it had a good tone match on either side of the mosaic.

Guided by Casa Ceramica as to what would actually be achievable, Suzanne designed the bathroom using CAD. The files and stone tiles were then taken to Aquajet in Chorley, Lancashire, (near to Casa Ceramica’s premises in Preston), to be cut to accept the glass. The stone was sorted first to achieve the desired colour throughout the floor.

The glass was thinner than the stone, so Aquajet also had to cut backing board for the glass to be stuck on to in order to bring it up to the correct thickness.

Duncan Cook says he was surprised how delicate the stone tiles were once the holes for the glass had been cut out of them and he admits he did have to return to Aquajet to have one or two of them re-cut.

Before Casa Ceramica started actually fixing the floor the company spent three days dry laying it to make sure it all fitted, measuring not just twice, but three or four times.

It took 20 hours to fix the floor. Dural CI matting was adhered to the floor using Tilemaster rapid Setaflex. Wall tiling was carried out using a combination of white standard Setaflex in some areas and Tilemaster Standard Lightweight in others and floor tiling using white rapid Setaflex.

The stone was sealed using Lithofin Stain Stop & Grouting and for grouting Mapei 171 Turquoise was used with the mosaics and Floating Driftwood from Ardex for the main field tiles.

The door feature was worked from top to bottom to avoid the risk of pieces not meeting, which could have happened by coming up from either side. The use of battens and rapid setting adhesive were essential.

All outside edges of the tiles were mitred and polished back to look like a solid block of stone and to finish off Casa Ceramica supplied and fitted Verde K marble to window cills and the returns which met the botticino.

Stone & Ceramic’s entry in the ‘Domestic Environment’ category was Little Chester Street in London’s Belgravia.

This is an ultra-high end luxurious residence. To emphasise that status, carefully selected marbles and granites have been used extensively throughout the project.

The bathrooms are adorned with exquisite book-matched marble cladding, flooring, vanity units and showers using polished Perlato Olympo, Nero Portoro, Grigio Carnico, and Carrara Bianco and Statuario marbles, while Brazilian black granite was used for the wall cladding in the lower ground pool room and basement.

Even the mirror frames in all the bathrooms and en-suites are marble.

A Perlato Olympo marble with bush hammered finish was fitted to the pool floor and a polished finish was used on the bathroom / shower walls.

Completing the project is a circular Crema Marfil limestone staircase with a polished Crema Marfil entrance bordered by Brown Cohiba. Crema Marfil kitchen floors complete the picture.

Another short-listed project in the ‘Domestic’ category that uses stone for the floors is Aurora, a modernist new build on the riverside in Hersham, Surrey, where Harper & Edwards was engaged by Tilmore Estates to work with it from the design stage through to installation. The project included a ground floor of under-heated 800 x 800mm Stonell St Aubin honed finish limestone. St Aubin, a creamy beige coloured tile with occasional fossil and crystal veins, is one of stone supplier Stonell’s most popular limestone floor tiles.

Harper & Edwards, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was chosen as the top tile contractor in the Tile Awards as the winner of the ‘Excellence in tile contracting’ category.

Completed projects include: the John Lewis HQ, where the company tiled the main reception floor and toilets with large format porcelain tiles, as well as tiling the basement showers walls and floors; the BMW showroom in Park Lane, where Harper & Edwards tiled the showroom floor; The Bank of England, where it tiled the toilets and showers of the health centre.

The judges considered the portfolio of projects the company has worked on reflects the diversity of the tiling industry and was indicative of Harper & Edwards’ level of expertise and professionalism and the high standards it sets.

The company says its commitment to service and workmanship is reflected in its order book, with 80% of contracts being generated from its existing client base, which includes some of the largest fit-out contractors in the country, many of which have given it ‘preferred’ contractor status.

At its ‘Domestic Environment’ entry in the Tile Awards, Harper & Edwards had been asked to produced a specification for tiling throughout that allowed for underfloor heating and waterproof membrane to all showers and bathrooms and, being at a riverside location, throughout the ground floor just in case there is any flooding.

Apart from the limestone floors at ground level, the tile specification included large format porcelain tiles for the rest of the house. The company says in its submission to the Tile Awards: “This project cried out for cutting-edge materials and the tiles used certainly provided the client with all he wished for, both in looks and maintenance free materials.

“Our reasons for submitting this project for an award is that it provides a fantastic example of how, by working with the client at the design stage, the tiling contractor can input all its expertise to ensure the client obtains the look they wish to achieve, but also gets the correct specification to ensure the tiled areas are fit for purpose, leading to a quick sale and tiles being used again on their future projects.”

The final short-listed ‘Domestic’ project was by C&A Bennett Tiling Contractors. It is a new build ‘eco’ house near Bath on hills surrounding woodlands. It is a modern design using Royal Blue limestone from what was then Lovell Purbeck (it recently changed its name to Lovell Stone Group – see NSS March 2014) and Burlington Slate from Cumbria.

Early in 2013 C&A Bennett Tiling Contractors negotiated the full contract with the addition to supply and install bespoke natural stone vanity tops in the bathrooms / ensuites.

After a fairly long manufacturing lead time, the works package commenced, starting on the main living space flooring where 400mm x random length x 20mm thick calibrated Purbeck limestone in a honed finish was specified and installed in alternating triangular bays that mirrored the design of the ceiling. This meant the floors required exacting setting out before installation started. The edges of the stones were hand finished throughout.

There were other elements, such as floor lights and electrical boxes, that had to be incorporated, necessitating adjustments in the positioning and fixing of such items into the base subfloor to ensure a true and accurate finish on completion.

There was also underfloor heating and C&A Bennett strongly recommended (and was subsequently instructed to use) decoupling matting in conjunction with the intermediate movement joints.

Having completed the main flooring, C&A Bennett’s attention turned to the three bathrooms and laundry room, where a combination of Italian porcelain tiles and Broughton Moor honed slate was specified.

Each room required levelling of floors to ensure a flush junction with adjoining finishes, screeding of shower bases and positioning of drains to create correct falls and ensure an aesthetically pleasing tiled finish. The result was an inspiring combination of natural slate contrasting with porcelain.

The boundaries between inside and out were blurrred by the external terrace paving being in the same Purbeck as had been used inside for the floors and in the same triangular design, although it is thicker and flame textured, rather than honed, to improve slip resistance, especially in the wet.

After some brain storming, the Schluter Troba Stelz system, suggested by C&A Bennett, was used to lay the paving.

During the final stage, bespoke vanity tops, upstands and shelving were installed in close co-ordination with the furniture joiner to provide the finishing touches to bathrooms.