Porcelain tile inside and out at Villa Cannes

Phira, a French design firm run by the architect Philippe Bonino, recently designed a single-family villa with an emphatically contemporary feel in Cannes, on the Côte d’Azur, next to a protected natural area with magnificent sea-views. The stylistic aim was to bring uniformity to the spaces, and grey was chosen as the dominant colour, in shades ranging all the way through to white, in both the materials and the interior colour scheme.

The use of stone-effect porcelain floor tiles from Marazzi’s “Mystone Ardesia” collection, in the colour Cenere (size 75x150cm), for both the interior and exterior spaces, enabled the architects to design the rooms and interpret the spaces with plenty of freedom, and transcend any sense of division between the indoor and outdoor space. Mystone Ardesia was also used for a substantial part of the wall coverings, in conjunction with another Marazzi collection with a sophisticated but bold flavour, namely Grande Marble Look, in Brera Grey with a matt finish (size 120x240cm).

“We chose Brera Grey as a wall covering,” explains Philippe Bonino, “not only because it harmonises perfectly with the flooring, but also for its vibrant, characterful patterning, which enlivens the building’s façade and sets up a counterpoint with the majesty of the nearby and distant environment.”

And the façade itself played a central role:

“We chose these porcelain slabs as façade cladding because we wanted a material that would create a work of sculpture rather than of mere ornamentation,” concludes the architect.

The result is an essential, minimalist, functional piece of architecture, which blends seamlessly into the surrounding landscape.