Erin Adams is renowned for her geometric tile designs with good reason. Case in point, Escala, or scales, a new collection of luxury marble mosaics mixes one of the most ancient and organic patterns, scales, with a respectful homage to mid-century design icon Giovanni “Gio” Ponti. Look closely and you’ll see the scales have two parts that in tandem create a diamond, turning the ancient pattern into something fresh. The second pattern of elongated ovals incorporates a narrow, extended diamond between each larger oval so that the entire collection has in common this intricate balance of the soft and the angular. Suitable for all indoor vertical and horizontal applications.
We talked with Erin Adams and she told us about her inspiration while creating this new collection.
Can you please tell us about the Escala or Scala Collection?
Erin Adams: I am super excited to talk to you about the first collection that I am collaborating with Country Floors, the Escala Collection. It is a small collection, literally and figuratively. It is the first of many to be launched very soon. And this collection I came up with because I really wanted to use all of the scrap marble outside which drives me crazy. So what I can do, how I can design a fresh, timeless, modern mosaic that you wouldn’t know that we were using scraps?
And that is how the shape and size were dictated. But once we designed, we then thought hmm, what if we scale it up, and we just use like normal marble, we tried that again and I really, really liked this smaller scale literally of the Escala Collection.
What was your main inspiration for geometric tiles?
Erin Adams: I came up with the shapes because I am a real minimalist, I love geometry. Gio Ponti is one of my tile designers of all time. I keep going back to the clean geometric shape, and then I always put a little twist to it.
Who is “Gio” Ponti?
Giovanni “Gio” Ponti (18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.
During his career, which spanned six decades, Ponti built more than a hundred buildings in Italy and in the rest of the world. He designed a considerable number of decorative art and design objects as well as furniture. Thanks to the magazine Domus, which he founded in 1928 and directed almost all his life, and thanks to his active participation in exhibitions such as the Milan Triennial, he was also an enthusiastic advocate of an Italian-style art of living and a major player in the renewal of Italian design after the Second World War. From 1936 to 1961, he taught at the Milan Polytechnic School and trained several generations of designers. Ponti also contributed to the creation in 1954 of one of the most important design awards: the Compasso d’Oro prize. Ponti died on 16 September 1979. He is one of the main inspiration for geometric tile designs
Really excited about this simple and small marble mosaic collection. It is called the escala/scala collection. It looks like scales but there is a kind of modern twist on scales and I guess that is part of what I am known for is; you know; taking these simple geometric shapes and adding a little bit of a twist or modern touch to it. That is what exactly the scale is. Escala is only in two, or three different colors.
I really like it in this kind of minuscule, smaller mosaic shape. There is really not a lot out there with the size we are presenting in this Escala collection. Again I just wanted it, kinda like simple colors like black and white, black and beige, and white on white. And let the pattern just talk to itself.
How do you approach tile and its place in architecture?
Erin Adams: The other way that I usually approach most of my work is architecture. I am very much interested in tile as an architectural rather than as decorative. So I would like, when I have a client, I always want them to design the tile to go all the way up to the wall to the ceilings. It looks like the wall was there first, the tile was there first before the house. Or their together. So again it is not an afterthought but part of the architecture and design.
Modernist, minimalist, and geometric artwork inspired me a lot. I keep trying to do kind of these fancy more floor-type of designs, but I continuously always go back to the simple modern shapes for geometric tiles.
And again try to make them very minimal, and how can they work together just as a component on its own. So I am really excited about this first small collection. There are many more that we’d be launching through Country Floors. I am really so excited about working with the Country Floors. I think that there is a great opportunity and so much more that we play together.