Bored with marble-look ceramics?

One of the most appealing aspects of writing about the ceramic tile sector is that it is just so progressive.

Ceramic tile design never stands still and every few years a new technology emerges that delivers a step change.

Over the past three decades I have seen single firing, rotary decoration, and reactive glazes all make their mark.

But it is two relatively new technologies that are currently driving the market – continuous pressing and digital non-impact print decoration. These are the technologies that have produced large format marble-look porcelains for the worktop market.

The ability to create flat, porcelain panels up to 3,600mm by 1,800mm and then decorate them edge-to-edge with any photographic or digital image provides enormous potential (if missing the holy grail of full thickness decoration).

At this year’s Cersaie exhibition in Bologna, Italy, in September, it was not hard to spot where these two technologies have now taken tile design. No doubt there will also be more examples at the Hard Surfaces exhibition co-locating with the Natural Stone Show in ExCeL London 6-8 June next year.

Judging by what was being shown this year, continuous pressing with digital decoration would seem to have but one logical design destination: wallpaper. Or, more accurately, wallporcelain.

It was everywhere. And in formats from 1,000mm by 3,000mm upwards it was impossible to miss.

What really impressed me this year was how these magnificent wallpaper-effects were offered in such a diversity of themes and patterns.

In recent years, tropical foliage, especially representations of Monstera Delicosa (better known as the Swiss Cheese Plant) have dominated, alongside other bold floral designs and some classic wallpaper themes like flock and Regency stripes… you know the sort of thing.

But not in 2022. This year the watchword is ‘variety’.

There were still tropical plants aplenty but the tile designers have been busy, playing with colours and patterns.

Naturalistic greens on the plants have been replaced by blues or greys; leaves have been isolated and formed into repeat patterns in a move away from branches and stems.

There were plenty of small, feminine floral patterns, more Laura Ashley than tropical rainforest. Some were quintessentially European in character. Others referenced traditional Japanese themes – cherry blossom and delicate Japanese maples. 

There were intricate designs like an Esher drawing, sophisticated Islamic geometric patterns, colour and line combinations that brought to mind Piet Mondrian, as well as stripes and other fabric echoes.

The variety was staggering. Graffiti art, bold geometrics, woven fabrics, origami… the design influences were rich, varied and wide-ranging, with roses and peonies sitting alongside spring meadows and autumn prairies. My particular favourite was the giant jellyfish at the top of this page.

The makers displaying these wallpaper effects came from across the globe – ABK, Cerdomus, Recer, Atlas Concorde, the Iris Group in Italy; Aparici and Pamesa in Spain; Tubadzin and Cerrad in Poland… the trend is universal.

Suggested applications ranged from hotel receptions and foyers to corporate HQs, bars and restaurants.

On the domestic front, they were shown in living rooms, as feature walls in bathrooms and kitchens, as a dramatic element in inside-out schemes, and in bedrooms, where tiled headboards and feature walls are an emerging trend.

The quality of the printing has to be seen to be believed.

And the most exciting thing is that this really is a blank sheet of paper. There are no limits. The pattern can be anything you can photograph, draw or create on graphic software.

The surfaces can be matt, satin or gloss (versions of which are given trade names by the manufacturers) or any combination of the three.

Patterns can be on single tiles or across two, four... any number. Neolith, for instance, has produced the tiles for a project where the picture came from a watercolour sketch by the architect. Each tile is unique and they are assembled on-site like a giant mosaic. Not cheap. But, with today’s technology, not unaffordable either.

It's tile, Jim, but not as we know it!

 

The collapse of a second multi-storey marble coffin niche structure at a cemetery in Italy has raised questions about the construction and maintenance of the structures.

Coffins containing human remains were left hanging in the air after the collapse in the Poggioreale cemetery in Naples. The collapse happened on Monday (17 October) in the afternoon.

Fortunately, the cemetery had been closed for the day and no-one was hurt. The cemetery remained closed on Tuesday, 18 October, to allow for the collapse to be dealt with.

The story appeared on the website of The Guardian newspaper, where it was reported that this was the second such incident at the cemetery this year.

Authorities sealed off the Poggioreale cemetery – the largest in Naples – as an investigation into the collapse of the marble building, called 'The Resurrection', got under way.

The Guardian quoted Vincenzo Santagada, a Naples councillor with responsibility for cemeteries, as saying: “The collapse was preceded by a bang and a dense cloud of dust. As an administration we are taking care of all the necessary formalities.”

In January some 300 burial niches were destroyed when another marble structure in another part of the same cemetery in southern Italy collapsed.

Families of the dead held a protest on Tuesday.

Politicians in Campania, the region of southern Italy of which Naples is the capital, say the city’s cemeteries have not been looked after for years. Francesco Emilio Borelli, a regional councillor for the Green Europe party, wrote on Facebook: “This is a critical and unacceptable situation. For too many years cemeteries in Naples have been badly managed and left to fend for themselves, falling prey to swindlers and profiteers.”

In February last year 200 coffins fell into the sea in Camogli in northern Italy after parts of a cemetery collapsed in a landslide that also caused two chapels to collapse.

Globus Group has launched a new range of British-made reusable masks for protection against dust containing crystalline silica (RCS) that are more comfortable to wear.

The new Alpha Sentinel range of full face and half-face masks protect against some of the most dangerous respiratory hazards found in the workplace, like RCS, and have been designed for the comfort of workers, especially those wearing the masks for long stints.

Lead Product Designer Josh Moffat says: “When it came to designing the Alpha Sentinel range we really tried to prioritise the end-user. We know that workers are often wearing these masks for long periods of time, and so focusing on comfort and fit means they're more likely to be worn correctly and workers can be confident they're getting the right protection.

“Looking beyond fit and comfort, we know another big reason for PPE non-compliance is masks getting too hot, so we’ve designed our unique large exhalation valve to minimise heat and moisture build-up.

“We really believe that the design innovations we have been able to make with the Alpha Sentinel masks are going to make a huge difference to the workers using these products every day.”

The Alpha Sentinel range comes with a range of changeable filters suitable for use in a wide variety of industry settings and is the first Globus product range to be designed and manufactured entirely in the UK.

globusgroup.com

Roberto Colonetti is a porcelain superstar, but his roots are in marble, as he demonstrated with a bust of David that was on show on the CMS Brembana stand at Marmo+Mac in Verona in September.

His love for the hard work of carving stone came from his father. Roberto grew up with the scent of marble in his nostrils in his family firm and he says stone is in his DNA.

Roberto is also fascinated by machines. One of his favourite machines is the tagliablocchi (stone saw) that cuts slabs from marble blocks. His first job at the family factory before he branched out into ceramics involved using this machinery.

If you want to find out about Roberto Colonetti’s techniques for working porcelain, you can buy a technical manual he has produced, called Colonetti System, from his website.

But he has proven himself as a marble carver by confronting the greatest of them all, Michelangelo, and carving a bust from Michelangelo’s ‘David’.

No doubt Italy’s geology makes it the natural place for stonemasons. It has many beautiful marbles and granites, not least the white Carrara marble that has been the inspiration for so many porcelain slabs and tiles of late.

Roberto says the statues you see in Italy have their roots in Ancient Greece, representing the perfection of the athletic body. Statues from the Roman Empire emulate that muscular embodiment of power.

In the Renaissance, Michelangelo’s five-tonne Carrara marble statue of David standing more than 5m tall reached what many consider to be perfection. It was unveiled in Florence in 1504.

The dramatic statue is of the teenager from the biblical story of David & Goliath. It shows the concentration in David’s gaze, nose flaring, lips and neck tense as he prepares for his battle with the Palestinian giant Goliath. David is armed only with a sling on his shoulder and a stone in his hand as he faces the mighty warrior. 

Michelangelo’s extraction of all the drama and suspense of the moment from a piece of marble is exquisite.

Roberto says: “David is the iconic symbol of an improbable victory. His character has always been considered an underdog because he is a young Israeli shepherd against a long career warrior, but he won against the greatest fighter, Goliath. The beauty of this statue goes above and beyond everything – the time, the age, the power, the race… so it became a symbol of victory and freedom.”

That was what inspired Roberto to reproduce the bust of David from Michelangelo’s original. He invites you to look into the eyes of his David and deeply appreciate the work involved in liberating the statue from the raw Italian Carrara marble.

www.colonettiroberto.com

Latest update: 3 November 2022

 

Most of Prime Minister Liz Truss's free market ambitions set out in the 'fiscal event' of former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng on 23 September have unravelled.

Liz Truss herself resigned as Prime Minister on 20 October and was replaced by Rishi Sunak on 24 October. 

On 17 October the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced:

• Changes designed to ensure the UK’s economic stability and provide confidence in the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline
• Basic rate of income tax to remain at 20% until economic conditions allow for it to be cut, IR35 and dividend tax rate reforms no longer going ahead
• plans to reduce dividends tax by 1.25 percentage points from April 2023 have been scrapped
• Treasury-led review of energy support for consumers after April 2023 and support for businesses to be more targeted.

Just weeks after becoming the then new Chancellor, on 23 September Kwasi Kwarteng announced tax cuts and policy cancellations to help businesses and stimulate demand. It was the day after the Bank of England raised interest rates again to subdue demand and bring down inflation, which was at almost 10% in August.

It is unusual to see the Bank of England monetary policy at odds with the government’s fiscal policy, and many economists were confused by what were variously being called Kwasi-economics and Trussonomics.

Kwasi Kwarteng was keen to present his ‘fiscal event’ on 23 September (a Budget that avoided the name to avoid explaining how the cuts would be paid for and to dodge any criticism from the Office for Budget Responsibility) as setting out the free-market credentials of the government under the then new Prime Minister, Liz Truss – although it is difficult to see what increasing the national debt by subsidising fuel prices has to do with free markets. However, the Chancellor said he expected the move to cut five percentage points off peak inflation.

The Chancellor described the tax cuts, which he believed would increase tax yields by encouraging growth and increasing productivity, as “a new approach for a new era”. However, the cheers of Conservative MPs quickly turned to bays for the blood of their Chancellor and Prime MInister as the value of the pound fell to record lows and the Bank of England had to bail out pension funds by supporting government debt (Gilts), the value of which was tumbling. 

While business was to benefit from Kwasi Kwarteng's fiscal event, life was going to be harder for benefit claimers, with the government determined to "make work pay", as the Chancellor put it, by holding benefits at their current rate (effectively reducing them by the rate of inflation) and making it harder to get them.

High earners, meanwhile, were to get the increased benefit of an end to the 45p top rate of income tax, so the top rate would be 40p in the pound, although a U-turn at the Conservative Party conference at the start of October meant the top rate remained at 45p. Bankers had the cap removed from their bonuses, which has not been reversed.

At the lower end of income tax there was a bringing forward of the 1p in the pound reduction to 19p in the pound due for 2024, but that has now also been scrapped.

This year's temporary 1.25% increase in National Insurance, which some describe as a tax on jobs, is being brought to an end prematurely on 6 November and its change to a Health & Social Care Levy that was due to start in April next year was scrapped and remains scrapped, although it will put more pressure on the NHS and social care, which it had been intended to help pay for.

The proposed rise in corporation tax, due to increase from 19% to 25% in April next year, was binned in the fiscal event but on 14 October, the day Kwasi Kwarteng was replaced as Chancellor of the Exchequer by Jeremy Hunt, it was announced that the increase would go ahead after all.

The dividend tax cut Kwarteng scheduled for April has also been scrapped. It means dividend taxation will remain at the current rates of 8.75% for basic, 33.75% at the higher rate and 39.35% for additional. Kwarteng had planned to reduce the basic and higher rates by 1.25 percentage points and scrap the additional rate altogether.

The IR35 off-payroll working rules that Kwarteng said would be repealed will not now be repealed. Many businesses would like to see IR35 scrapped because it is chaotic. Kwarteng said removing it from April would once again make people responsible for determining their employment status and paying the correct tax and National Insurance. The Truss government wanted to cut back employment protection legislation and this was a move in that direction.

Cost of living increases in alcohol taxes were binned by Kwarteng to ease the pressure on pubs and restaurants, but have now been reintroduced. 

The cap on energy bills that was to last for two years for householders and the six month Energy Bill Relief Scheme for businesses will both now be reviewed. There will still be a cap for consumers but only until April next year, after which Chancellor Hunt said help would be targeted rather than universal.

The government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme gives businesses, charities and public sector organisations support with their energy bills this winter by providing a discount on gas and electricity unit prices from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023.

You do not need to apply to the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, your energy supplier is required to apply the scheme to your bills automatically. 

Chancellor Kwarteng said the £1million threshold for the Annual Investment Allowance will be maintained instead of being reduced to £200,000 in April next year as previously planned and that remains the case. The super deduction of 130% on capital expenditure did not get a mention and looks as if it will end as planned at the end of March.

Kwarteng said the Government was in early discussions to create 40 ‘investment zones’ that looked as if they would actually cover most of England, although it seems as if Rishi Sunak might drop the whole idea of them. They were intended to ease planning regulations, offer a freeze on rates for businesses moving on to the sites and mean no National Insurance had to be paid on the first £50,000 a new employee earns. It was proposed there would be no stamp duty on the purchase of land in the sites, either. 

The investment zones were in addition to the free ports the government announced under the ‘levelling up’ programme. They are intended to alleviate some of the difficulties and costs associated with Brexit, although free ports were not mentioned by Chancellors Kwarteng or Hunt. A previous experiment with free ports was abandoned in 2012, when Conservative David Cameron was Prime Minister, because they produced no additional investment or employment, tended to attract criminals and money laundering, and deprived local and national economies of tax revenues. Whether they will not go ahead or not remains to be seen.

The government also planned to publish a list of infrastructure projects it would be supporting.

The levelling up programme received a brief mention by Kwarteng, although only to say the best way of levelling up is to free the markets.

Kwarteng's stamp duty cuts on housing are currently still going ahead, which will offset some of the increase in the cost of mortgages due to the seventh rise in the base interest rate (which also puts up mortgages) since December by the Bank of England on 22 September. The base rate rose to 2.25%, putting mortgage interest repayment rates at around 5-6%. On 3 November, interest rates were increased again, by 0.75 percentage points this time to a base rate of 3%. 

Nathan Reilly, Director of Customer Relationships at Twenty7tec, says of the stamp duty changes: “By cutting stamp duty to energise the housing market the Chancellor is borrowing from the Rishi Sunak playbook. When we saw this in 2021, we had incredible volumes of new business in the housing sector, and some of the busiest times in living history for mortgage advisers and lenders.

“The context is clearly different this time – with a different macroeconomic picture for both interest rates and inflation – but Kwarteng and Truss will be hoping that the house buying market can play a major role in the UK’s near-term economic growth.

“The mortgage market is currently increasingly reliant on the re-mortgage market, and a stamp duty change is likely to rebalance this back towards a purchase-driven market again.”

Under the current system, there is no stamp duty to pay on the first £125,000 of a property’s value. That is doubling to £250,000. First time buyers currently pay no stamp duty on the first £300,000, which is increasing to £425,000. The value of property on which first time buyers can claim relief goes up from £500,000 to £625,000.

Chancellor Kwarteng said these steps would mean 200,000 more people not having to pay stamp duty.

He said planning restrictions will also be eased, even though planning authorities have always maintained that planning is not what caused the government to miss its now abandoned 300,000-a-year house-building target. It looks as if the proposed changes to planning will be dropped by Rishi Sunak in any case.

The changes to planning regulations and the easing of regulations in the investment zones were already showing signs of unravelling before Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister amid concerns by many people, including Conservative MPs, about the effects on nature, biodiversity and the environment, and because of the criminal activity they can attract.

The initial reaction of the financial markets to Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cutting, that could have involved borrowing an additional £200billion or so over the next five years to add to the already unprecedented national debt, was to sell pounds, with the exchange rate falling to a record low of $1.033 against the US dollar and €1.06 against the Euro, its lowest point against the Euro since the credit crunch banking crisis in December 2008.

Why did they sell pounds? Because money represents work done or, in the case of borrowing, work to be done. If a government increases money supply, especially by borrowing, either more work needs to be done (through productivity increases and growth) or the value of the currency falls, with each pound representing less work. With no explanation of how the tax cuts were to be paid for, the markets decided the growth they would produce would not be sufficient to cover the amount borrowed, so the value of the pound would fall. They factored that into the price they were prepared to pay for sterling, hence the fall in its value and the value of government debt (gilts), so the cost of borrowing also increased.

It was largely as a response to the reaction of the financial markets and the need for the Bank of England to intervene to support gilts, plus a backlash from Conservative back-benchers, that the U-turns have been made, Kwasi Kwarteng was replaced by Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor and Liz Truss was replaced as Prime Minister by Rishi Sunak.

To read the government's summary of Jeremy Hunt's announcement on 17 October, click here.

To read the whole of Kwasi Karteng's 'fiscal event' speech, click here. 

Stone memorials have once again been making the news because a council has laid some flat. This time it is Scarborough Council in North Yorkshire that is being criticised by the people whose memorials have been toppled. And, of course, the Press is indignant.

The council said beforehand that a ‘qualified contractor’ would carry out the inspection of the memorials, although in fact in the one cemetery so far tested the council decided to carry out the inspections using its own staff. It says it intends to use a contractor for its other two cemeteries. The three cemeteries involved are Dean Road & Manor Road and Woodlands cemeteries in Scarborough, and Larpool cemetery in Whitby. 

Press reports say ‘hundreds’ of headstone have been toppled. One even said “50,000 headstones purged” and “thousands removed”, which the Council says is "nonsense". It told Natural Stone Specialist that 1,386 memorial stones have been inspected to date and only 110 of them have been laid down... carefully.

However, one picture used by the national press did show a tablet with the top corners broken off.

A spokesperson for the Council said: "The sections we have tested so far are older parts of the cemetery and contain memorials installed before BS 8415 came into effect. The reason we are doing the checks is to identify which stones do not meet the standard and those which are unsafe, so that is why we are laying those stones down. 

"If, as our inspection programme continues, we find recent memorials that fail to meet the standard, where the mason has not installed correctly, we will advise the grave owner that the mason will be obligated to make the necessary repairs free of charge."

In a statement, the Council adds: "No headstones have been damaged by our staff and contractors. They are not pushed over but if they pose an immediate safety risk they may be carefully laid down and positioned on the grave face up so that the inscription can still be read.

"The small signs attached to the headstones advise people to contact us if they have any queries. We do our very best to place the signs without obscuring the memorial text.

"We do not charge any fees for repair. Stonemason fees may vary and any recent stones (within 10 years) should still be under warranty from the stonemason and be made safe free of charge.

"Communications about the work were carried out from early June to give people plenty of notice. This included putting up signs throughout the cemeteries, which are still in place, an article in the June edition of our digital newsletter, Residents’ News, which goes to around 40,000 subscribers, a news release to print, online and broadcast media and information booklets at local stonemasons. We added a digital version of the booklet to our website and put information on our social media channels."

The owners of the memorials and the Press are quick to blame the council for toppling the stones, but if they had the potential to cause harm by falling on visitors to the cemeteries or staff working there, compromising the safety of the cemeteries and leaving the council open to claims for compensation for injuries, what option was there?

The fact that memorials have been laid down all over the country because they were not installed using adequate dowels, ground anchors and foundations is a concern, and Scarborough once again demonstrates the importance of fixing in accordance with BS 8415 as updated in 2018. 

Before the inspection, Councillor Tony Randerson, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: "We recognise how important and treasured memorial stones are to the families and friends of those they commemorate. Many of the very old and ornate memorials are also of historic significance to the borough.

"At the same time, we have a legal duty to ensure our cemeteries are safe places for people to visit and work, which is why we need to carry out these inspections and take action to make unstable memorials safe.

"Our contractors will be respectful of the environment they are working in and inspections will never be conducted when burials or grave side services are taking place nearby."