Big is beautiful: Florim

In the world of Florim Ceramiche, a sense of infinity is achieved on two levels. Firstly, this Italian ceramics company’s new lightweight, super-sized porcelain stoneware slabs form satisfyingly seamless surfaces that can be enlarged ad infinitum.

These groundbreaking, high-quality sheets offer continuous surfaces adaptable to a plethora of settings in both interior design and architectural contexts – floors and walls, rainscreen cladding, kitchen and bathroom countertops and indoor and outdoor furnishings, such as tables, doors and fireplaces.

Florim boasts the widest, most versatile range of products on the market for all these applications. The large Florim slab is both functional and highly attractive. Together with the vast spectrum of sizes on offer, Florim manufactures many unique options for materials in addition to a wide variety of aesthetic styles, all of which guarantee the ultimate in creative freedom when it comes to designing residential and commercial spaces.

Imagine bathroom tiles magnified tenfold or even a hundredfold so that any joins between them appear to vanish, literally smoothing over all cracks and bestowing on any interior a pleasingly unbroken surface. Well, with its large slabs, Florim goes one better than conjuring an illusion of a continuous surface.

The advantages of interior and external architectural surfaces wrapped in a unitary material cannot be underestimated. Florim’s large-format sheets allow architects, interior designers and their clients to envelop floors, walls, facades and all kinds of horizontal and vertical planes with an uninterrupted, homogeneous surface, resulting in an impressively cohesive whole. Moreover, when Florim’s large slabs are present in a sequence of adjoining rooms or on large outdoor surfaces, the effect is of an elegantly unified environment on a vast scale.

Florim’s highly covetable solution is facilitated by the versatility of its generously sized sheets whose dimensions range from 80x80cm to 160x320cm, their flexibility enhanced by a choice of three thicknesses – 6mm, 12mm and 20mm.

Inspired by an innate passion for beauty and design, Florim has been producing porcelain surfaces to meet all the needs of the construction, architecture and interior design sectors over 50 years. Headed by Claudio Lucchese, son of its founder Giovanni Lucchese, the company’s heritage is firmly rooted in the ceramics district at Sassuolo in Modena and has a strong presence as an international industry trendsetter. Today, the group employs 1,400 people worldwide and generates turnover of more than €400m.

Famed for its quality, expertise, cutting-edge technology and sustainability, Florim is known on the market for its high-end brands Floor Gres, Rex, CEDIT – Ceramiche d’Italia, Casa dolce casa – Casamood, Cerim and FLORIM stone and Milestone, the latter manufactured in the US for the North American market. With state-of-the-art production plants, distribution companies and partnerships in Europe, America and Asia and a number of flagship stores and single-brand showrooms, the company has a high profile in the world’s most renowned design districts. Its strategy is combined with the creative drive and passion of its team, to realise the value known as “Made in Florim”.

Florim has recently invested in founding two 4.0 factories in Mordano-Imola in Bologna and Fiorano Modenese in Modena, both of which are equipped with the most advanced production technologies and are solely dedicated to fabricating large tiles. Its manufacturing methods are admirably sustainable: solar panels carpet the company’s HQ and Florim makes its products by deploying energy it generates rather than fossil fuels.

Not only do the large-format slabs have a strong aesthetic appeal but they are also lightweight and easy to install. They boast all the advantages of porcelain stoneware — a high-performance material that is easy to maintain, waterproof and resistant to thermal shocks and impacts, while also being hygienic. They also represent the ultimate in freedom when it comes to design, thanks to the myriad materials they are available in. Many years spent assiduously investing in technological innovation and cutting-edge product development have paid off, paving the way for Florim’s beautifully uniform porcelain stoneware surfaces.

The large-scale sheets are available in various shapes, including the perfectly square 160x160cm tiles in addition to slabs in several rectangular variations, from the long and narrow to the wide and long. Viewed vertically, the biggest sheet is around twice the height of an average person.

Such sizing is the secret behind Florim’s ability to offer surfaces that appear borderless, stretching out as far as the eye can see, with no junctures or joins disrupting their immaculately continuous expanse.


© Architonic