ALEKSA studio creates colourful tile magic during Clerkenwell Design Week 2019

For its second year as a featured showroom at Clerkenwell Design Week, Solus pulled out all of the stops by creating a show-stopping installation in collaboration with ALEKSA studio.

The imaginative creations designed by the emerging London-based architecture and design practice combine innovative tiles from Solus, along with special fabrications techniques and large format digital printing.

Director of ALEKSA studio Aleksa Rizova said: “Our key ambition was to create eye-catching installations showcasing Solus’ fabrications techniques and materials and how they can be utilised in an unconventional way to create dynamic wall screens and partitions. We used lots of colour and playful designs to draw people in and encourage them to interact with the installations.”

Taking over the showroom corner on Clerkenwell Road is Suspended Colour. The display consists of nearly 600 individual ceramic tiles in seven different pastel colours from Solus’ Carnival range. The tiles can spin 360 degrees creating a dynamic colour gradient display. It was a huge hit on social media, being mentioned in many posts by influential bloggers and design studios.

For the façade facing St John Street ALEKSA studio and Solus created Illusion – a collection of bespoke printed porcelain wall tile designs that feature dynamic parametric patterns. The geometric textures and colour gradients were created by ALEKSA studio using digital design tools and were printed on full size porcelain slabs by Solus. The displays reveal the potential of large format digital printing and the endless variations possible using digital design tools for interior and exterior applications.

Commercial and Marketing Director at Solus Stephen Baker said: “Clerkenwell Design Week is one of our favourite events in the world for architects, interior designers and design lovers. Being part of the Clerkenwell community, it is so important for us to push the boundaries when it comes to this festival. We were so thrilled to work with ALEKSA studio on Suspended Colour, which showcases the beautiful, rainbow hues of our stunning Carnival range, and Illusion – an exploration of bespoke fabrication and printing techniques.

“Suspended Colour is Solus’ first ever interactive window installation and we were blown away by the transformative nature of the piece, especially with the way guests were able to twist and turn the rods, creating their own design. It provided the perfect backdrop for people to snap a selfie in the showroom and generated a huge amount of social buzz throughout the festival.

“With Illusion, the team utilised Solus’ bespoke fabrication and slab printing service, taking an original design by ALEKSA studio and applying it to the surface of four monolithic wall tiles. The design proved incredibly popular, so much so that Solus hopes to work with ALEKSA studio to create a brand-new collection exclusively for Solus Clerkenwell.”