Attendees at Coverings 2013 will be able to view four space designs incorporating tile and stone built during the international exposition’s Installation Design Showcase. The live-action demonstration and exhibit will spotlight the role installation plays in the successful realization of design projects.
Construction on the project will begin two days before Coverings 2013 in Atlanta opens and is scheduled for completion on Wednesday, May 1st. The exhibit will remain on view through the show’s close.
The showcase matches four Atlanta-based design firms with four installation teams from around the U.S. The National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA), a Coverings co-sponsor, initiated the designer-installer match-ups. To participate, installers must have NTCA Five-Star Recognition and be certified by the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation. This year’s pairings will produce four installations – a bar/lounge, a hotel lobby, an in-patient room in a women’s birthing center and a master bathroom – each of which will highlight a different design aesthetic centered on tile and stone.
Michael Neiswander and Margaret Nysewander of Atlanta’s ASD Inc. will design the lounge/bar, featuring all-red tiles from different Ceramics of Italy manufacturers applied in a faceted manner. “We wanted to challenge ourselves and the installer with something complex,” said Nysewander. “The different textures will showcase the installer’s methods.”
Hospitality-design veterans Foreman Rogers and Allison Isaacs of Atlanta’s tvsdesign will take on the hotel lobby. “The challenge here is to evoke a huge space while working on a rather small scale,” said Isaacs. The team has specified Plane 5-ft.-by-10-ft. engineered porcelain ceramic wall panels from StonePeak Ceramic for their resemblance to marble.
For the in-patient room in a women’s birthing center, “the whole concept of the room is serenity and relaxation,” said Mary Porter who along with Craig Anderchak – both of Atlanta’s VeenendaalCave Healthcare – designed the space. Their first move was to select Italian tile that looked like light-color fabric, “as if it were soft to the touch,” said Porter. “For the floor, we are using wood-look porcelain tile from Italy, which will work well with the texture of the walls.”
Mark Williams of Atlanta’s Mark Williams Design Associates will design the master bathroom. “I’m doing a more masculine version – 1920s Gatsby modernized with Deco undertones,” he said. To achieve the look, he has specified Noble Company products and TOTO fixtures along with Crossville tile throughout, including porcelain wall tile in chestnut brown for a neutral background, bright blue glass tile for accents and oblong 4-in.-by-24-in. porcelain floor tile that will be laid in a herringbone pattern.
“These rooms are not all settings in which you would necessarily expect to see tile,” said Bart Bettiga, executive director at the National Tile Contractors Association. “But one of the Installation Design Showcase’s purposes is to demonstrate tile and stone applications that may be unusual or surprising but that turn out to be appropriate and wonderful. Above all the showcase highlights just how important the ongoing designer/installer partnership is to a successful project. It offers attendees the chance to witness the industry’s best practices first hand and to interact directly with designers and installers during the build-out right there on the show floor. Bringing the field to life in this way is another example of what makes Coverings a unique and valuable experience.”
Pictured: A Coverings Installation & Design Awards Winner from 2012
