From São Paulo Oficina7

Oficina is the Brazilian word for “workshop”.  The Oficina7 series aims to be a creative workshop, a melting pot in which different artistic disciplines meet, merge and are contaminated, generating new forms of expression.

The inspiration comes from São Paulo do Brasil, the world’s fifth largest city and young design capital. “High-speed, frenetic, stimulating, multicultural, chaotic, even hostile but definitely fascinating,” is how it is described by Fernando and Humberto Campana, Brazil’s most famous designers, promoters of crafted, conceptual and experimental design.

Precursors of free, nonconformist, green creativity, they were the first to give shape to a Brazilian phenomenon now found in a variety of contexts: from the street art of the graffiti artists, who sign their masterpieces in spray paint, to the Ovo firm designers who put their name to eco-projects, architecture and graphic design, not to forget fashion.

The founding principles of Sao Paulo’s current creative movement, based partly on recycling and reuse, have also inspired the stylistic language of the Oficina7 series: a wall covering that it is soft and at the same time highly tactile, thanks in part to the presence of slight texturing with delicate marks that create a timeworn impression. A real innovation in slender wall tiles, in which inkjet and screen printing meet for the first time.

There are seven colours, three warm and three cold shades in a graduated scale, linked by a single bright colour: red. Different ideas and sensations are generated depending on the combinations in which this is used. This colour range allows a variety of chromatic solutions, for design schemes that share the Soft Design mood as their common denominator:

- Bianco for clean, minimal atmospheres, where it is the furniture that establishes the bathroom’s personality;

- Grigio, combined with Bianco or Antracite to create delicate tone-on-tone or graduated contrasts;

- Antracite, in combination with Bianco for sharper contracts;

- Avorio, used alone or in combination with beige, to create warm, comfortable atmospheres.

- Beige, used alone for a more “conventional” style, or combined with Tabacco for a stronger personality;

- Tabacco, for stylisht, sophisticated design schemes,

- Rosso, in combination with either the cold or the warm shades, to give the bathroom more personality.

Considering a heterogeneous, sophisticated target, bathrooms subdivide into two types: “young” and “elegant”, which will contain raw or hand-processed natural materials, combined with “cast-off” materials and recycled pieces interpreted in fresh ways. What is certain is that every Oficina7 bathroom will be unique, original and refined, every time.

To underline the vibrancy of Brazilian creativity, the assortment of decorative tiles focuses on the world of the design, fashion, art, street art and graphics coming to the fore in contemporary Sao Paulo.

Hexagonal decorative tile Bianco, Grigio, Avorio and Beige variants.

The design world has now been exploring ways to use the hexagon for some years; in Oficina7, it takes its inspiration from the two designers of the Ovo firm, promoters of green design. An imaginary grid is used as the basis for forming broken hexagons of different colours, worn away and placed in random positions in relation to the background surface. This makes the decorative tile highly versatile, as it translates into a random pattern on the wall. This decorative tile is available in four colour variants: in beige and grey, red takes centre stage, making the piece more dynamic; in white and ivory, the grid of hexagons appears in tone-on-tone graduated shades, for a more subtle effect.

Striped decorative tile, Bianco, Avorio and Beige variants.

Here the stripes, the key decorative feature of ceramic wall tile collections, are inspired by the fashion designer Gilda Midani, who creates a simple but very sophisticated style using natural materials like cotton put together by hand, with methods that are imprecise, like handpainting.

This style is transferred onto the white, ivory and beige ceramic tiles. The first two are very refined, with tone-on-tone graduated shades for simple, minimalist atmospheres; the beige is stronger, including red and tobacco for greater contrast. Laid in a panel it gives the impression of strong, uneven brush strokes, making the series more dynamic; in a frieze, it highlights details of the bathroom in more classical style.

In the gallery the most evocative pictures.