A Rome apartment makes consistent use of spaces and surface coverings

When embarking on a project to renovate their 200-square-metre home, a family in Rome opted for hi-tech interior design solutions coupled with a practical and functional style. The project involved upgrading the utility systems to bring them up to standard, reorganising the interiors and garden, and replacing the surface coverings.
The house is built on two levels, the lower floor devoted to the living spaces and the upper floor for the bedrooms and bathrooms, connected by a staircase with a surface cladding that guarantees overall stylistic consistency.
The floor covering materials were chosen by Adriano d’Aloia from the ceramic tile retailer Expo Ceramiche located in Guidonia Montecelio, a town in the province of Rome. Placing his experience and professionalism at the clients’ service, he helped them put their ideas into practice and complete a highly functional project. “The clients made an excellent start by opting for a hi-tech project,” he explained. “The wood-effect porcelain tiles created elegant and visually striking spaces while delivering the technical and material qualities necessary for maximum functionality.”
A single type of porcelain was chosen as the floor covering for a 150 square metre area comprising the lower-floor living spaces including the kitchen, the whole of the upper floor with the sole exception of the bathrooms, the stairs and the section of exterior paving around the entrance. This design choice ensured a high level of functionality and style throughout the house while maintaining a sense of continuity between the various rooms.
The chosen flooring material was the Kauri porcelain tile collection in the colour Awanui from La Fabbrica, inspired by the textures of wood from trees that fell during cataclysmic events in the distant past and remained underground for thousands of years on the magical islands of New Zealand. The clients and tile retailer chose this collection from La Fabbrica for its capacity to combine a wood look – including veins, knots and irregularities – with the renowned technical characteristics of porcelain, namely durability and resistance to chemicals, wear and abrasion, staining and thermal shock. This made it possible to recreate the warm, intimate atmosphere of wood while maintaining a high level of functionality. These technical characteristics meant that the same collection could be used both for the interiors (including the more delicate spaces such as the bedrooms and the areas normally more susceptible to wear such as the kitchen) and the exteriors, where porcelain’s ability to withstand atmospheric agents and temperature variations really came into its own.
As Adriano d’Aloia explained, this material offers the additional benefits of simplicity of installation and the fact that it can be used for skirting and on the treads and risers of the stairs, thereby achieving the desired uniformity throughout the entire project.