Grespania's Coverlam stole the show

I saw a ton of new and exciting stuff at Coverings last week but more than anything, a tile series from Spanish manufacturer Grespania rose to the top and showed what I say was the best thing shown in Las Vegas. In recent years, advances in ceramics technology have allowed tile manufacturers to make larger and thinner tile.

Grespania's Coverlam is a series of massive and massively thin tiles that wouldn't have been possible a couple of years ago. Here's my shot of their Oxido display from last week.

Coverlam comes in in four sizes: 500mm x 500mm, 500mm x 1000mm, 1000mm x 1000mm and astoundingly, 3000mm x 1000mm. As impressive as the sizes are, what blew me away is that these tiles are 3.5mm thick. How thick is 3.5mm? Look.

Unbelievable. By making tile this thin and this large, grout lines are pretty minimized, obviously. But there are a few other things going on that are a bit less obvious. There's a serious reduction in the resources needed to make this tile when compared to more traditionally sized tile. The second big savings comes from their reduced weight.

That reduced weight has a cascading effect. Coverlam costs less to transport and it adds less weight to the load a structure has to bear. Load bearing is an issue in timber-framed homes, especially on their upper floors.

Coverlam can be used on floors, on walls, as building sheathing and intriguingly, kitchen and bath counters. Did I mention that you can cut it with a glass cutter? Here are some publicity stills that show the product in use.

You can learn more about Coverlam on Grespania's website. Here's the direct link to the Coverlam catalog. Coverlam is available worldwide and it represents something entirely new. Consider using it in a future project.

Reality check

The events in Japan are horrific. Truly, truly horrific. As painful as it is to watch the events unfold, it's equally painful to watch the fear-mongering going on around the world.

I grew up in a house 26 miles from Three Mile Island and I was in the eighth grade when it experienced a partial core meltdown. The entire world freaked out when TMI was happening and I remember getting caught up in it. Granted, I was 13 years old at the time. Boy do I remember keeping the blinds drawn and not being able to go outside for recess. I remember too the absent kids whose parents decided to flee.

via Smithsonian

But despite the partial core meltdown and the release of radioactive water and steam, nothing happened. South Central Pennsylvania is an agricultural area and there was no increased incidence of two-headed cows or mutated corn. Study after study has shown conclusively that the people surrounding Three Mile Island suffered no ill effects. I can tell you the same thing as someone who grew up close to Three Mile Island. I don't have three arms nor do I have an increased chance of getting cancer despite my love for the Susquehanna River and the manure-scented air of Pennsylvania.

The troubled nuclear plants in Japan will be contained and the Japanese people will rebuild their lives and their country. Count on it. Just as equally, you can count on the anti-nuclear people to use the tragedy in Japan to try to stop further investment in nuclear power. Most people don't understand what ionizing radiation is and have not idea that they're exposed to it constantly. Further, they have no idea that the Pacific coast of North America is at no risk for ill effects from the events unfolding in Japan.

Here's a table that explains radioactive exposure in a very straightforward way.Many thanks to my cousin Tim for passing this along to me.

We cannot continue to burn stuff to make electricity, that much is clear. Between rising sea levels, peak oil and melting icecaps, burning fossil fuels represents a bigger problem than any nuclear power plant can.

Until the inefficiencies of wind power and solar power are addressed, nuclear is the best option we have.

You're free to disagree with me of course but I ask that you do so rationally. And whether you agree with me or not I ask that you pass along that table.

Mosaico+ has a winner in Dialoghi

Another favorite from Coverings last year was back this year with a new booth and a new product line that's really fired my imagination. That vendor was Mosaico+ (Mosaico Piu in Italian) and one of their new product lines is Dialoghi. Dialoghi means dialog in English and it's certainly an apt title.

Dialoghi consists of a number of mosaic shapes that are available in a host of stones, colored glasses, woods and metals. In a few weeks there will be an interactive planner on their website available where you'll be able to mix and match their tiles to your heart's content. You'll then be able to design your own, fully-custom mosaic pattern and it'll arrive as 30cm x 30cm sheets, all ready to install.

Planners and randomizers aren't unusual on manufacturer's websites when it comes to the mosaic niche. What makes Mosaico+ so cool is their shapes. It's easier to show rather than tell so here goes.

See what I mean? Bravi Mosaico+! Their new website will be up and running in a few weeks but in the meantime, you can look at the rest of their offerings.

Italian manufacturer Sicis at Coverings

I make no secret of the fact that I love fine-art mosiacs. Even though they're a different category all together, I have a great fondness for mosaics produced in a more production-oriented environment too. A longtime favorite among these mosaic factories is Ravenna-based Sicis.

Sicis' work provocative and it's wonderful to see an Italian company doing business all over the world with a consistent, in-your-face marketing message and the goods to back it up. Nobody does production mosaics in glass anywhere near what Sicis does and it was a great thrill to see them at Coverings this week in Las Vegas.

Sicis rolled out six new color stories at the show this week and were kind enough to provide me with clear photographs of each. Sicis works in very large formats. Here's one of my photos of their booth in Las Vegas. It's Easier to appreciate the work in isolation though.

There were six new color stories as I mentioned earlier and the vignette above is showing how they presented Tango.  Here are a couple of their official shots that show off the thinking behind Tango.

Next up was Gypsy.

Followed closely by neutral but still interesting Mink.

Here's one of my close ups from the Mink display.

The chiaroscuro in the Skyline color story lends itself to the old world as well as it does the new.

Savile has me rethinking everything I think I think about grey.

And if Sicis can't poke you in the eye with an image, they're do it with a name. This is Nude.

Great job Sicis. What do you guys think? Could you imagine using some of the room-sized installations these patterns and color stories are intended for?

The best advice I've ever received: A Let's Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What's the best advice you've ever received?"

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The best advice I've ever received came from Stephen Sondheim. Actually, Sondheim didn't deliver it personally. Rather, someone suggested that I pick up a copy of Sondheim's 1984 triumph, Sunday in the Park with George.

Sunday in the Park with George, like all of Sondheim's work, is deep and complicated. If you're looking for something light and uplifting, a Sondheim musical probably isn't for you. Sunday in the Park tells a fictionalized story of Georges Seurat, the French pointillist. Specifically, it tells a fictionalized story of his life as he set out to paint Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Portions of the play take place within the painting itself.

Act two moves the action ahead 100 years to the year 1984. Georges Seurat's great-grandson, George, is also an artist who shares the tortured soul of his famous ancestor. In act two comes the song "Move on." Here's a recording from a London Concert last year. The singers are Daniel Evans and Jenna Russel who starred in a revival of the play in London in 2005 and then again on Broadway in 2008.






The best advice I've ever been given is in that song. Stop worrying where you're going, move on. Let me repeat that. Stop worrying where you're going, move on.

When I first heard that song, I was a neurotic 31-year-old who spent more time second guessing himself than he did being productive or carving out some kind of happiness. I was unhappy and I couldn't figure out why. The first time I heard that lyric it hit me like a Mack truck that I wasn't happy because I wasn't letting myself be.

I was so afraid to make the wrong move that I ended up not going anywhere. So I sat and wrote down all of the "bad" things in my life. I used to blame that stuff for my unease, but as I wrote I started to see that the common thread in all of those situations was me. Once I had that aha moment there was no going back.

I'm hardly perfect and I backslide all the time, just like everybody else. But thanks to a song in a play most people have never heard of, I see my life differently than I did when I was that neurotic 31-year-old. I am a happy man and I got that way because I decided to be a happy man.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.