Total porcelain

Light, greenery and space were the three aims of a renovation project that completely transformed the layout of a two-floor single-family home in Altavilla Vicentina, a town in the northern Italian province of Vicenza. While the exterior has maintained its original appearance, the interior stands out for the essential contemporary style of the new layout and the chosen materials. Zamberlan Antonia, the company based in the nearby town of Sovizzo which was commissioned by the owners to carry out the renovation work and supply the materials, sought to enhance the sense of space and light and ensure total liveability of both the interior and exterior. The distribution layout is very simple. The ground floor consists of a large 100 square metre open space comprising kitchen, dining room, living room and large modern bathrooms and service spaces, while the upper floor houses the bedrooms with wardrobes and bathrooms.
The new layout not only creates a greater sense of space but above all opens the house up to the outside world via a covered patio that connects the interior with the garden. The absence of partitions in the large living room allows light to flow freely, and the rational layout of the furniture creates well-defined functional islands. But the aspect that really revolutionised the perception of the spaces was the choice of materials. Porcelain tiles were chosen as the flooring throughout the house, seamlessly linking the interior and exterior. Less conventionally, they are also used on the living room walls to create a visually-striking, almost three-dimensional material texture. The designers chose the Stoneline tile collection from Marca Corona, a highly versatile porcelain that comes in a wide range of natural stone-like colours and offers plenty of scope for creative installation. Stoneline comes in two different finishes designed specifically for interiors and exteriors and also includes dedicated interior wall tiles. In the living room in this home for example, the Muretto variable thickness strips create a dynamic, stone-like texture on the partition walls. The availability of modular rectified sizes allows for many different installation patterns that would be difficult to achieve with natural stone. Moreover, the wide range of colours and heterogeneous shading allows for experimentation with constantly new aesthetic solutions. In this project, the 60×60 cm size in the colour Grey used for the floor coordinates perfectly with the Black colour 3D brick tiles chosen for the walls. Last but not least, trim pieces such as steps and skirting can be used to complete the project in every detail – as demonstrated in this home in Altavilla Vicentina.