Porcelanosa at Beyond Design: stone, Krion and the art of the surface

Five days in Valencia

For this edition the showroom at 21 Calle Jorge Juan became a meeting place for five days. Architects, designers and interior designers came, and so did the general public, which is the idea behind the format: Porcelanosa presents Beyond Design as a festival of participatory experiences rather than a trade display.

Three strands shaped the programme, called Three Visions of Design, Living Outdoors and Fabric & Feel. Each approached design from a different side: experiments with material, collective creation and the experience of a room.

Three Visions of Design

Once again the company invited three studios, BETA Ø, Kresta Design and Astet Studio, to create unique pieces from two of its materials: XTONE porcelain and Krion® solid surface. On 29 September the designers presented the work in a conversation open to the public and spoke about their process and the challenges of both materials.

AYLA, by Astet Studio, is a coffee table that plays weight against lightness. Two rounded volumes in Krion® Coffee Cream lean against each other and carry a top in XTONE Breccia Imperiale. Because the piece stops short of the floor, a line of shadow runs beneath it and the table seems to float.

The COMETA collection works as a geometric system in which a single module, a circle inscribed in a square, generates different pieces. Its references are the stacked kites of Alexander Graham Bell and the geometric sculpture of Constantin Brancusi. The COMETA XS table is made in Krion® Red Fire 6401 and the shelving unit in Krion® Pillow Pink 6402, both testing how light a construction the material allows.

PØ, by BETA Ø, begins at the quarry. Each volume in XTONE Camouflage is treated as a single block with an almost primordial presence, held by a minimal stainless steel frame that lets the stone take the lead.

Living Outdoors: a mural in nine tiles

The outdoor strand was the most hands-on. Throughout 30 September visitors added colour to a mural built from nine ceramic modules of the Matt White collection by Porcelanosa, each 59.6 × 59.6 cm with a matt finish. The graphic composition drew on iconic design objects of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Created together with Isaval Global, the mural was painted with Acquatex cerámica, a water-based enamel for indoor and outdoor use made to protect, coat and decorate ceramic surfaces, applied with brushes from Expaint. The result showed ceramics as a creative medium well beyond their usual place on floors and walls.

Fabric & Feel: the room as an experience

The third installation brought furniture, textiles and surfaces together. Its walls were clad in Undora, a lightweight mineral wall cladding, in the Campaspero Greige Lineal and Apomazado models, and the floor was Linkfloor® Harmony Natural, a wood-effect vinyl by L'Antic Colonial.

At the centre stood the Stripes armchairs by Gamadecor, with enveloping proportions, horizontal channel detailing and a separate structure for each module. They were upholstered in the Gardenia, Castaño and Carlota fabrics by IQ Home, chosen from different collections to bring colour and contrast, so that each chair has its own identity.

Why it matters for a villa

Read as a whole, Beyond Design is a reminder that the materials of a house are a design decision, not a line in the builder's specification. Stone surfaces that can be shaped into furniture, mineral claddings and ceramics that work indoors and out are exactly the choices owners face when a villa is renovated.

Our guide to renovating a villa in Marbella explains how such a project runs, and the overview of villa styles shows which materials suit which kind of house.