NANCHOW: beauty of broken tiles

NANCHOW is one cement tile brand from Xiamen, China, focusing in designing, producing and selling handcrafted cement tiles and derivative products.

NANCHOW team has dedicated in studying the arts and crafts of cement tiles from scratch since 2012, and develop new era’s sense and aestheics on the traditional craftsmanship, devoting to enhancing the quality of cement tiles and endowing with new aesthetic values. With the cement tiles in the heart, NANCHOW endeavour to explore and express the beauty and quality of life.

Cement tile is a kind of concrete building decoration material with special patterns and colours, which is made by hand and with the materials of cement, dinas and mineral pigment.

In the middle of 19th century, the first piece of cement tile was born on Mediterranean with the influence of Arabia architectural aesthetics and the emergence of cement. With the rise of “Arts and Crafts Movement” and “Art Nouveau” in the Europe, the cement tiles combined the techincs and art became significant in that era, and were spread to Latin America and Southeast Asia alongside the colonization of Europe, mainly placed in the importand architecture, like palace, museum, concert hall.

In the end of 19th century, the cement tiles were brought into China by the returned overseas Chinese and widely used in the high class residences and clubs, which were combined with the patterns and colours of Chinese traditional architecture to show the unique quality of culture.

Based on the traditional craftsmanship of cement tiles, the new materials and technique will be used to improve the quality of cement tiles. NANCHOW will also cooperate with artists, museum to improve the aesthetics value and art value of cement tiles.

Meanwhile, NANCHOW also develop the derivative products to break new ground for cement tiles. The research and development of “RETILE” series products is one of the most important projects of NANCHOW. There are inevitable some defective titles and waste in the production of cement tiles due to the handcraft and material factors, which can be turned into materials for reuse and transferred into good and new products with the concept of “RETILE”, in order to achieve maximum recycling of waste.

RETILE

The development of the "RETILE" series products is one of the major topics at the present stage of NANCHOW. It is the exploration of the connection among cement tile production, environment and design.

Although hand-made cement tile is a low-energy and environmentally-friendly product, in the production process, there are also many inferior products or wastes that are not fully controlled due to the manual and material. NANCHOW hopes to regenerate it through the design. By using contemporary design aesthetics and craftsmanship to recreate objects with new features and aesthetics, allows NANCHOW to maximize the recycling of waste from the production line.

ZHEN镇

"ZHEN" is the first attempt by designers to recycle cement tiles, and is also the first derivative of NANCHOW. The cement tiles are cut through repeated provocations to capture the intact local fragments. The brass material package is supplemented by appropriate design. The four sides are horizontal and vertical. The localized pattern is less constrained and has more imagination space. The manual cement The combination of products with brass and stone is also quite pleasant. The town's light objects are of no use and can be used for self-defense.

CIXI磁

"CIXI" is the designer's re-use of cement tiles, and is also the second derivative of NANCHOW. Cement tiles cut through intact prosthetic fragments, embedded in different shapes of small pieces of copper, the localized pattern is less constrained and there is more room for imagination, while the manual cement products and brass stone combination There is also quite a pleasant surprise. It is affixed to refrigerators or iron cabinets and is a great addition.

SOLI立

"SOLI" is the third cement tile derivative product designed by the NANCHOW team. It is a simple design based on the basic elements. It is the designer's design of the product's conventional design. It is inspired by an accidental daily desktop finishing. A "dead point" is set at the end of a conventional plate book so that it can house books independently and securely, which breaks the need for traditional books to be used in pairs. The "dead point" is in the form of a circle. The round facets make it possible to find the right contact point for the oblique or upright position of the book. By rotating, you can easily change the effective space of the book. Embedded in the tile is a tile of cement, adding vividness and individuality to the cool design, and it also creates a bit of fun in the order.

NANCHOW will continuously explore the infinite possibilities of cement tiles by constant searching for better material, technique and art design, devoting to the “technology innovation” & “design development” of cement tiles.

Image Source: NANCHOW