Tiles : The stone effect
Every year there is more stone to be seen among the winners at The Tile Association Awards, reflecting how significant stone has become to the market. NSS takes a look at some of the stone tiles in this year’s TTA Awards and other developments in stone in the tiling sector.
Floor and wall tiles are at the fashion end of the market and fashion can be fickle. It craves novelty and satisfying that craving produces a continual stream of innovation, as was evident at The Tile Association (TTA) Awards presented at a gala evening in the Hilton Metropole Hotel at the NEC, Birmingham, last month (April).
If there was any doubt remaining about the importance of natural stone to the tile sector the TTA Awards dispel it every year now. There just seems to be more stone in the winning projects all the time.
There is a category for natural products, where you would expect to see stone – and the pictures on this page show the Indonesian stone in the Elite collection from CP Group that won the category this year. The other finalists were tumbled Antique Gold Jerusalem stone from Stone Deals and a ‘fusion’ of stones to create a staircase from Creative Stone & Tile (more about that on page 32). But it is not just in the ‘natural products’ category that stone appears.
The ‘Best Use of a Tile by a House Developer’ featured stone from China and Portugal and even the UK – and it is interesting to see that stone from the UK is beginning to make a bit more of an impression in the tile market.
The other finalist in the category was a four-storey, 800m2 mansion where nearly all the flooring was natural stone.
The ‘Best Use of Tile in the Leisure or Hospitality Industry’ was at the Savoy, the refurbishment of which, with its Carrara and Marquina marble tiles supplied by Mega-Marble in London and fitted by Arrow Tiling, who won the Award, was featured in Natural Stone Specialist in March.
‘The Best Use of Tile in a Private House’ was won by Natural Stone Emporium for the stone, used throughout the house, that the judges considered created a key design statement.
Two of the finalists in the ‘Marketing’ category were David Scott Tile & Stone Specialists and Creative Stone & Tile, with David Scott taking the Award with a marketing campaign that included TV advertising, posters, press advertising and a particularly interactive website.
David Scott Tile & Stone Specialists were also one of the finalists in the ‘Excellence in Independent Retailing’ category, while ‘Excellence in Multiple Retailing’ was won by Mandarin Stone, one of the largest importers of stone in the UK and nearly all of it is tiles for the home and garden.
Mandarin have showrooms in Monmouth, Bath, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bristol, Marlow and Weybridge and are making their first foray into the North by opening in Wilmslow in August as natural stone just continues to grow in popularity.
Owner Alma Small told NSS: “Stone is difficult as it’s natural and varies so much. We want our customers to be able to see it in the flesh before purchasing and our inspirational showrooms give people this opportunity.”
The showroom will display more than 200m2 of natural stone, combining inspiring lifestyle sets and contemporary gallery-type sample areas.
One Award winning product in the Tile Awards was called Natural Stone but wasn’t. It was the ‘Floor Tile of the Year’ winner. It comes from Marazzi and is a 100x100mm unglazed porcelain tile that can be used on walls, floors and worktops.
In spite of the misleading name, it is an interesting return to smaller format tiles, the move away from which has favoured stone because it is easier to make larger format natural stone tiles than it is to make large format ceramic and porcelain tiles. However, it is difficult to see the desire for larger format tiles going into reverse any time soon.
There was not much British stone among the winners but, as we noted earlier, indigenous stone is growing in popularity. Welsh//Slate have long supplied slate as tiles and Cumbrian stone company Burlington’s expansion in interiors last year helped them grow sales by 20%, they say.
Other quarry operators are happy to provide their stone as flooring and one company, Churchfield Stone, have made a speciality of supplying English limestone floor tiles.
The shops that display Churchfield’s stones include some of the top names in tile retailing – Hyperion Tiles of Ascot and Marlow have featured the range for more than 12 years, Stonell are successfully promoting the flooring in all seven of their showrooms and Hardrock Flooring have for many years included English tiles in their showroom. Churchfield Stone can now also be seen in a new first floor exhibition area at Howarth Builders Merchants’ branch in Corby.
Imports account for the vast majority of the stone tiling market but the few British companies supplying stone tiles report a ready market among more discerning clients at the top of the market.
Strata Decopanel
This fire surround is clad in Decopanel from Strata Natural Stone, the tile distribution operation of Harris Slate & Stone, one of the country’s largest stone importers. The tiles, which include corner pieces to give the appearance of a solid stone construction, are real stone bedded in a concrete backing. At more than 40kg/m2 they are heavy as tiles go, but can be fixed to the right substrate using a single part flexi-adhesive.
Szerelmey install light weight travertine suspended ceiling
Stonework and restoration specialists Szerelmey, have installed an innovative suspended travertine ceiling at the Rothschild Bank New Court headquarters in the City of London, enabling air conditioning and electrical equipment to be stored in the void above.
It was assembled off-site in separate panels, which eliminated the inefficiencies of wet trades that come with installing a traditional stone ceiling – it took just 20% of the time it would have taken to install a traditional stone ceiling.
The lightweight tiles allowed the ceiling to be suspended on a conventional suspended ceiling fixing system.
The prefabricated tiles are created from a thin veneer of travertine on an aluminium honeycomb backing, making them only a fraction of the weight that a solid stone ceiling would be. They are cut into their bespoke designed sizes ready for installation on site.
Darren Moore of Szerelmey says: “Installing a traditional stone ceiling is heavy work and time consuming – it requires dedicated access, lifting gear and heavy duty steel fixings. The prefabricated suspended ceiling system we used at New Court was easier to install and gave the client more options.
“A great deal of electrical equipment relating to lighting and security cameras is hidden above the ceiling panels at New Court. However, the client still has what appears to be a sophisticated stone ceiling.
“We are excited about the future prospects the system has due to the significant benefits it provides. Travertine was used at New Court, but any stone could be used. We expect to be working on similar projects at other offices and luxury hotels and residencies that require the style a stone ceiling brings.”
The developer on the project is Stanhope, the construction manger Lend Lease and the architects are Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).
Avoiding distortions
The trend for larger format and thinner tiles has resulted in some natural and engineered stone curling up when it is fixed using normal water-based adhesives and grouts.
The most famous case of stone bending is the Carrara marble that clads Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia concert hall and congress centre in Helsinki, Finland. The large format, thin section Carrara marble panels bowed quite dramatically and had to be replaced.
The same thing is now happening on natural and engineered stone tiles. And for the same reasons – because the stone is being used in larger format in thin section (as thin as 10mm for tiles).
Studies of the stone on Finlandia Hall that resulted from the expensive discovery that marble can bend in the right climate showed it is not all Carrara marble that will react in this way.
Carrara marble comes in two forms, regularly grained granoblastic and amoeboid xenoblastic. Only the granoblastic is prone to bending but it is not possible to tell by looking at the marble with the naked eye whether it is granoblastic or xenoblastic.
And it is not only Carrara Marble that bends, as those who have laid Verde Alpe marble and some agglomerates using water-based adhesives and grouts can testify.
The Tile Association’s Technical Committee Chairman, Brian Newell, told Natural Stone Specialist that BS5385 Part 5 advises against using Verde Alpe for general tiling areas, suggesting it is better to confine its use to inserts only.
He said: “Deformation of other types of stone is often also due to excess / disproportionate moisture expansion characteristics of some of the minerals that make up the body of the stone.
“For this reason, it is recommended when bedding thin quarried stone tiles into a cement-based adhesive that the adhesive should be a rapid drying formulation (which is not always the same as a rapid setting type).”
With agglomerates it has been suggested that the bending results from the different orientation of the pieces of stone in the matrix. There are also some questions raised over the formulation of the resins used in some parts of the world.
For the unfortunate contractor fixing stone tiles there is no straightforward way to tell which tiles will bend and which won’t simply from their appearance. Experience fairly quickly supplies some answers but watching tiles peel themselves off walls can be an expensive way of learning.
The bending can be avoided simply by using an adhesive and grout that is not mixed with water. For Verde Alpe something like Keralastic, which is pure polyurethane, might be a sensible choice. For the DuPont Quarella Quartz at Heathrow Terminal Five, cement mixed with Mapei’s Granirapid, a synthetic latex, was used.
On the other hand, cement-based water mixes are less expensive and are ideal for use with the majority of stone tiles.
Water-based adhesives have also led to stains appearing on some stone tiles and Brian Newell says: “It is generally recommended that a white, cement-based rapid drying product is used, but it is perhaps safer to ask for the stone supplier’s recommendations in this respect.”
That is not always so easy. Not everyone selling tiles has a deep knowledge of the materials they are supplying, especially when it comes to stone.
The makers of adhesives and grouts might be able to help. At their headquarters in Italy, Mapei, for example, developed a machine for testing the curl of stone in the presence of moisture.
They will test stones for tile manufacturers and for major projects but it is not a service they make generally available. Nevertheless, they do have a large database of test results and can provide help to specifiers and contractors – if they can identify the stone. Commercial names sometimes given to tiles by suppliers do nothing to help the specifier or user know what the stone is.
Mapei’s new white Marble & Stone rapid setting tile adhesive was launched at the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London in March. It is ideal for most stone tile applications. In addition to an expanding manufacturing plant and offices in Halesowen in the West Midlands, Mapei UK Ltd have a dedicated team of Specification Managers nationwide and an expert Technical Services Department. Mapei also offer a full NBS specification service and RIBA accredited CPD seminars.
www.mapei.co.uk
Floors of Stone become The Good Floor Store with expansion
Floors of Stone are no longer just stone. They have expanded into a new 350m2 warehouse in Loughborough, Leicestershire, that incorporates a new showroom, displaying not only their travertine, marble, limestone and slate tiles, but also a new range of solid and engineered wooden flooring, laminate and vinyl from brands that include Amtico.
And as they are no longer just selling stone, they have also changed the name that the new showroom will trade under, rebranding themselves as ‘The Good Floor Store’.
Floors of Stone also sell their ranges of stone and now the ranges of timber and other products directly from their website, which has not rebranded (yet?).
A Creative stone fusion solution
These stairs, which put Paul Bryan of Creative Stone & Tile in Omagh, Northern Ireland, among the finalists of the ‘Best Natural Product’ category of the Tile Awards last month, are made of three different stones – Amarillo Triana treads and risers with Azul Valverde edge strips and Rossa Valencia panels either side.
The stairs were created by Paul Bryan for a local restaurant. They were a solution to planning regulations that required edging strips with an LRV (light reflective value) of better than 30 so they can be seen by the partially sighted.
Paul worked out the solution with his Spanish stone suppliers, fusing the three stones together as individual steps and risers using resin and metal dowels. Each composite step and riser, comprising five separate pieces of stone, could then be installed as a single unit, simplifying the site work.
Paul Bryan established Creative Stone & Tile just three years ago. Before that he was fixing tiles in London with W B Simpson & Sons Group. He believes that background has been instrumental in being able to come up with solutions such as these stairs. “It’s a nice solution,” he told NSS. “We were very pleased with it.”
www.creativestoneandtile.co.uk