21st Tile of Spain Awards winners honoured in Valencia

The prize-giving ceremony of the 21st edition of the Tile of Spain Awards was held on February 28, 2023, on the sidelines of CEVISAMA 2023 – the international trade fair for ceramic floor, wall and paving tiles, bathroom equipment, natural stone, industrialised construction and machinery – at Feira Valencia, Valencia, Spain.

Organised and promoted by ASCER, the Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturers’ Association, the prestigious awards for architecture, interior design, and students’ final degree projects strive to showcase, improve awareness of and enhance the use of Made in Spain ceramic tiles by architects and interior designers undertaking architectural and interior design projects in Spain and across the globe.

Tile of Spain is the internationally renowned umbrella brand of more than 100 Spanish ceramic tile manufacturers affiliated to ASCER.

The awardees received their prizes from Spanish ceramic tile industry dignitaries, including ASCER president Vicente Nomdedeu during the Tile of Spain international press conference held in context of CEVISAMA 2023.

The jury of the 21st edition of the Tile of Spain Awards was led by British architect Eric Parry and included the Spanish architects Eric Parry (Eric Parry Architects), Biba Dow (Dow Jones Architects), Luis Rojo (Rojo/Fernández-Shaw), José Juan Barba (director of Metalocus), interior designer Agnès Blanch (Estudi Vilablanch) and Ángel Pitarch (president of Castellón Architects’ Association).

The jury met at the ASCER headquarters in Castellón on November 23, 2022, to choose the winners in three main categories.

The €15,000 architecture award went to the ‘Social housing in Ibiza’ project by Ripoll-Tizón architects’ studio, while the €15,000 interior design award was awarded to the ‘Avila. Planning an empty space’ project by All Around Lab (Noelia de la Red, Jordi Ribas). The €5,000 final degree prize was awarded to the ‘Rampant architecture. The town and the home’ project by Marta Millanes Sánchez (Toledo School of Architecture).

Architecture award

With respect to the architecture category winner the jury singled out the high architectural standards of the ‘Social housing in Ibiza’ project, where traditional looking glazed stoneware tiles are used to guarantee aesthetic appeal and high durability. The jury also pointed out that the tiles have a decorative function, marking out filled and empty spaces so that the architecture is organised around the empty inner space.

Interior design award

In the interior design category winning proposition involving the ‘Avila. Planning an empty space’ project by All Around Lab (Noelia de la Red, Jordi Ribas) the jury highlighted the project’s capacity to minimise the use of materials and aesthetic resources, while also noting that the ceramic tiles chosen for the flooring and to clad the furniture, lend the whole project visual coherence, while also guaranteeing durability through the use of ceramic slats.

Final degree award

As for the final degree project winning entry featuring ‘Rampant architecture. The town and the home’ project by Marta Millanes Sánchez (Toledo School of Architecture) the judges’ panel praised the use of ceramic materials as a linking thread to define different pathways throughout the home.

Special mentions

The jury issued architectural mentions to the ‘A pergola opening onto a kitchen garden’ project by Bona fide taller (Alejandro Martínez del Río), and the ‘Agora Valencia pavilion’ project by Arqueha + Miguel Arraiz respectively.

The jury praised the ‘A pergola opening onto a kitchen garden’ project for regenerating the fringe area in a small town in Castellón. In this project a single tile model is used, both as paving and for the top shelter of the pergola, which integrates a wash house and a retaining wall.

As for the ‘Agora Valencia pavilion’ project the jury commended the use of ceramic materials as a technological solution in the creation of a civic space conceived to symbolise Valencia’s role as a design capital, using a system that can be mounted and dismounted.

An interior design mention was bequeathed to the ‘A home/gallery in the Granada’s Gran Via’ project by Annona Arquitectura (Silvia Cabrera Jiménez & Felipe Hita Suárez and Ana Frías collab. For this project the jury noted the use of ceramic materials on the floors, walls, ceiling and furniture, taking advantage of colour to mark out new volumes created as a result of the project while also integrating and highlighting the existing mosaic work.

The jury awarded final degree mentions to the ‘Courtyards, lounges and stairs’ project by final degree student Alicia de Luis Sánchez (Madrid School of Architecture), and the ‘Denser the drawing, the finer the thread’ project by final degree scholar Ana Link López (CEU San Pablo University in Madrid).

For Alicia de Luis Sánchez’s project work the jury praised the typological and linguistic reflections that the project involved, focused on a plot of particular urban complexity, while Ana Link López’s work was commended for the value placed on the circularity of the building systems and on traditional materials, disciplines and social aspects.

The 21st Tile of Spain Awards were sponsored by Endesa, Valencia Port Authority, and PwC España and were supported by the Conselleria de Hacienda of the Valencian Government.

Last Updated on 1 year by Arnold Pinto