20th Tile of Spain Awards winners receive prizes in Valencia

Image: Winners of the 20^th Tile of Spain Awards pose with ASCER and other dignitaries in Valencia on June 14, 2022.

Tile of Spain – the internationally renowned brand of 125 ceramic tile manufacturers affiliated to ASCER (Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturers’ Association) – has awarded the prize-winners of the 20th Tile of Spain Awards.

The prestigious annual awards organised and promoted by ASCER, seek to improve awareness and understanding of ceramic floor and wall tiles made in Spain amongst architects and interior designers and promote the tiles’ use by these professionals in projects located both in Spain and around the globe.

The 20^th Tile of Spain (Cerámica de España) Awards’ prize-winners received monetary prizes totalling €35,000 (US$36,950) in three distinct categories: Architecture: €15,000 (US$15,835), Interior Design: €15,000 (US$15,835), and Final Degree Project: €5,000 (US$5,278).

In addition to lead prize categories, the 20th Tile of Spain Awards also featured honourable mention segments: Architecture, Interior Design, and Final Degree Project.

The Tile of Spain Awards initiative occupies place of pride in the international ceramic tile industry, with premier architectural and design projects vying for top honours. The Final Degree Project component of the renowned competition is for students of architecture.

ASCER invited MENews247 as an international media partner, to attend the in-person prize-giving ceremony of the 20th Tile of Spain Awards held on June 14, 2022, at Feria Valencia, Spain’s largest exhibition centre, and where the winners’ representatives in the three competition categories received their prizes in the presence of Vicente Nomdedeu Lluesma, President of ASCER, and other Awards’ stakeholders.

The jury for the 20th Tile of Spain Awards included: Architects Calos Ferrater (OAB Arquitectes), Fermín Vázquez (b270), Jaime Sanahuja (Sanahuja & Partners), José Mª Marzo (Tectónica), Alicia Fernández (Alicia Fernández Interiorismo), and Ángel Pitarch (Colegio Arquitectos de Castellón).

The lead prize in the Architecture category was awarded to MRM Architects’ Studio (Miguel Alonso Flamarique, Roberto Erviti Machain, Mamen Escorihuela Vitales) for the new headquarters of the Valencia Construction Sector Employment Foundation located in Castellón province.

The six-member jury praised the use of large-format ceramic tiles as a quintessential feature of the ‘Valencia Construction Sector Employment Foundation’ building envelope. The jury also commended the use of a standard product [ceramic tiles], applied in industrial style, to create an outer shell based on the criteria of cleanliness, order and minimum resources.

As ceramic tiles are the flagship industrial and artisanal manufacturing product of the Valencia region, MRM Architects’ Studio chose to extensively use ceramic tiles for the structural construction, thermal comfort, and exterior aesthetics of the single-storey structure.

In the Interior Design category, the lead prize went to Estudio Vilablanch for ‘Living in a Coderch’, an apartment refurbishment project in Barcelona’s iconic Banco Urquijo building that recaptures the essence of Coderch’s architecture. 

The jury hailed the project’s rigorous exercise in interior design, in keeping with the spirit of José Antonio Coderch’s architecture, while also highlighting the concept of permanence as a common denominator. The judges also praised the skilful choice of materials and meticulous care with which the design project was put into practice.

The Final Degree Project lead prize was awarded to Gonzalo López Elorriaga from Madrid School of Architecture for the project entitled ‘Castilla La MaRcha’ that features the use of traditional-format ceramic tiles in innovative ways.

The judges highlighted the ground-breaking appeal of this provocative project, ‘using ceramic tiles as a star feature in a journey from depopulated Spain to an enjoyed Spain’. The project involves the creation of a leisure and entertainment resort unlike other conventional ones, promoting a rural setting in order to revitalise an abandoned space in the town of Peralvillo, while also ‘highlighting its value through an efficient unorthodox programme aimed at generating profits and attracting a new population’.

The Architecture mention was awarded to ‘Malaga University’s Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy’ by Lips Architects’ Studio (Eduardo Pérez Gómez and Miguel Ángel Sánchez García).

The jury highlighted the innovative, glossy, continuous ceramic skin that was developed for the whole building, using round glazed tiles and other smaller ones in the gaps. To facilitate the tiles’ installation, a mesh-mounted system was used. The building’s layout and its cladding feature meeting points, negating the need to cut ceramic tiles or to use special tiles.

Interior Design mentions went to the ‘JM55’ and ‘Cal Garrofa’ projects respectively. The JM55 interior design project by BURR was praised by the jury for its capacity to create vibrant interiors in a small space, with the sole use of a single central tiled feature around which all the other spaces revolve.

The Cal Garrofa interior design project by Julia Tarnawski and Albert Guerra also won Interior Design Mention as the judges were pleased with the radical conceptual philosophy, used to revive a traditional-looking home, in addition to the extensive use of colour and ceramic tiles to create a space with strong poetic connotations.

Final Degree Project mentions were granted to the ‘temporary accommodation and civic centre in the old La Asunción factory’ project by Mariona Dalmau Benavent from La Salle School of Architecture, and the ‘Hortus Conclusus’ project by Teresa Clara Martínez López from Madrid School of Architecture respectively.

The old La Asunción factory project in Spain involved the design of facilities for a neighbourhood with a civic centre and temporary accommodation for evicted families. The jury praised the project’s restrained sobriety. The existing building is surrounded by a series of box-like volumes, distributed in such a way that Cerdà’s original urban grid has been maintained, generating a new model with a permeable layout and façades with a visually porous design. This contributes to an environmentally efficient ensemble, with an urban design worthy of admiration.

The Hortus Conclusus project links Lisbon’s old quarter to San Jorge Castle and prolongs the existing gardens along the bottom of the hillside through a series of platforms on different levels.

In particular, the jury highlighted the project’s precision and its rich formal outcome, using Spanish ceramic tiles to offer a richly expressive, highly creative future vision of the city and its urban fabric.

The 20th Tile of Spain Awards were sponsored by ICEX (España Exportación e Inversiones), Endesa (Spanish electric utility company), and Valencia Port Authority.

Last Updated on 1 year by Arnold Pinto