Ceramicland is putting forward a new vision for the ceramic cluster. This manufacturing hub has evolved over the years and now operates in a globalised world. And it is precisely in this new world that Ceramicland aims to fulfil its potential.

The 160-page publication entitled “Ceramics and design. The Italian ceramic industry architecture competition 2012-2016” presents the 33 winning projects chosen from more than 500 submissions by Italian architecture firms that used Italian ceramic tiles between 2012 and 2016.

The construction industry is going through a period of gradual transition in which quantity must be replaced by quality, new build by renovation and urban regeneration, and low-efficiency buildings by structures capable of producing more energy than they consume.

Within a climate of renewed attention to beauty and design in building construction, and under the spur of new fiscal incentives, one of the most interesting challenges contemporary architects are facing today is the issue of well-designed sustainable and energy saving building envelopes, be it simple coating solutions or more performing ones such as ventilated façades.

All WCs fall into the 6 litre Water Ecolabel class and are the result of a production process that reuses heat from kilns for drying, recycles all defective pieces and old plaster moulds and recovers all ceramic sludge.

The choice of materials is one of the most critical factors in the sustainability and performance of a project. The functions performed by materials go well beyond aspects of construction and aesthetics and include the energy comfort of buildings.

For Solano Benítez "architecture 'speaks' through materials, it communicates using ceramic and stone. We acquire knowledge through action".

The project laboratory created by a group of friends who followed the same career path from Gregotti Associati in the mid-eighties through to the foundation of the practice Piuarch represents a new form of professionalism in Italian architecture.

Japanese designers Setsu and Shinobu Ito, who work together in Milan, follow a design approach based on the relationship between human beings, nature and technology and share a fascination with Italian design

The buildings created by Peruvian architecture practice Barclay & Crousse look like pre-Colombian ruins with pure geometries, seemingly timeless volumes extruded from the soil.