The Heritage collection blends high-performance with stone-inspired beauty

When selecting materials to clad walls and floors in residential and commercial interiors, durability and ease of maintenance are crucial factors to consider. Yet it’s important not to forget the role that aesthetics, and particularly biophilic aesthetics, play in our daily lives: it has been scientifically proven that natural materials can improve our wellbeing by enhancing moods, whilst also evoking culture, history and memory.

Finding a harmonious balance between function and aesthetics for floor and wall coverings has been the raison d’être for Italian porcelain stoneware specialist Ceramiche Keope since 1995. Each product undertakes a process of material alchemy from the HQ in Casalgrande in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where it is thoroughly researched, patiently iterated and produced to ‘Made in Italy’ quality. The result is a surface covering that provides easy maintenance, durability and moisture resistance, all the whilst offering a vast range of complex colours and textures that evoke the aura of raw natural materials. Five million square metres of the refined, high-tech surfaces are produced annually and supplied to more than 80 countries worldwide.

Launched at Cersaie in 2023, the Heritage collection, a range of porcelain stoneware coverings suitable for both indoor and outdoor surfaces, takes one stone in particular as its inspiration: Portland Stone, the storied limestone quarried from the Isle of Portland in Dorset, UK. Ceramiche Keope selected it for its captivating properties – the depth and narrative of its natural fossil inserts, shells and sedimentary inclusions; its warm, softly undulating neutral palette of sandy and pale grey hues; and for its historical importance within British and American architecture.

Through advanced technology and engineering, Ceramiche Keope has reproduced the sophisticated natural effect of Portland Stone onto the surface of its high performance porcelain stoneware tiles. The rich and elegant ‘natural graphics’ of the limestone have been reproduced through a palette of four colours, carefully sourced from the surface of Portland Stone including Beige, Ivory, Pearl and Grey. Together these colours faithfully replicate the natural variations of the limestone – earthy and full of light, with sandy shades enriched by fossil inclusions.

The result of this painstaking process is that the Heritage collection can authentically cover the indoor and outdoor environments of prestigious residential, public and commercial spaces that seek to evoke the historical presence and memory of Portland Stone. While offering a comparative aesthetic effect with many biophilic properties, the porcelain stoneware has enhanced functional properties being powerfully resistant to wear and tear, frost, humidity, weight and importantly retains its colour and appearance for its life due to the composite firing process.

For further versatility and compositional freedom, Ceramiche Keope offers a wide range of finishes and sizes within the Heritage range for designers to match to the needs of their project. In addition to the core collection, there are also four decorative geometric tiles punctuated by alternating shapes and colours that invite designers to take a sartorial approach combining refined patterns to a bold and playful result. Whilst finishes offer practical, safety and tactile benefits such as the R10 that provides added texture and depth, or the R11, a non-slip finish.

With Ceramiche Keope’s ‘Match App’, designers can upload a photo of an existing surface and select a product from across Ceramiche Keope collections to seamlessly blend in, making choosing materials for renovations and extensions effortless. Debates in the design industry continue to expound the progress of sophisticated design processes that breed products which increasingly evoke the accurate appearance of natural materials alongside increased functionality for modern day use. Ceramiche Keope’s Heritage collection is at the forefront of this progress – matching the visual warmth, tactile touch and historic narrative of Portland Stone in its surface, all the while being flawlessly durable.

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