Tile of Spain announce its annual winners for cutting-edge use of ceramics.

The Tile of Spain awards have returned once again, bringing attention to the creative use of Spanish tiles in architectural and interior design projects - both in Spain and further afield.

Now reaching its 21st year, the competition is organised by ASCER, the Spanish ceramic tile manufacturers’ association and its awards remain well established amongst the architectural community, carrying a prestigious reputation. This year saw Ripoll-Tizón claim the award for the architectural category, whilst Allaround Lab snapped up the category for interior design.

Ripoll-Tizón Estudio de Arquitectura’s first-prize social housing project in Ibiza features traditional-style glazed stoneware tiles with a coastal aesthetic.

The jury praised the high architectural standards of this project, combining the high performance of ceramic with a decorative purpose. In the vast inner corridors of the complex, tiles cleverly mark out filled and empty spaces, giving the architecture a strong identity.

The winner of the Interior Design category was Allaround Lab, granted for their luminescent warehouse conversion. Eschewing any excess of ornament, designers Noelia de la Red and Jordi Ribas selected ceramic tiles for the flooring and to clad the furniture, advocating visual coherence to the project as a whole, while also guaranteeing durability.

The judges applauded the project’s capacity to minimise the use of materials and aesthetic resources.

The award for the Final Degree Project, a category directed at architecture bestowed to Marta Millanes Sánchez from Toledo School of Architecture for her project ‘Rampant architecture. The town and the home’. The jury admired the use of ceramic materials as a linking thread to define different pathways throughout the home.

In addition to the first prizes, the judges awarded special mentions in each category.

For innovation in architecture, ‘A pergola opening onto a kitchen garden’ by Bona fide taller (Alejandro Martínez del Rio) was celebrated for its capacity to regenerate a fringe area of an urban environment, within a small town in inland Castellón. A single tile model is used for the project, both as paving and for the top shelter of the pergola, which integrates an existing wash house and a retaining wall.

Also congratulated, was the Valencia Agora pavilion by Arqueha + Miguel Arraiz for its use of ceramic materials as a technological solution. The tiles created a civic space conceived to symbolise Valencia’s role as a design capital, using a system that could be mounted and dismounted.

Tile of Spain sheds light on the Spanish tile industry, representing more than 125 tile manufacturers. For details of this and previous years’ awards, click here