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The look of natural stone, weathered oxidized steel, and even simulated wood grain were big trends among the Spanish ceramic tile showcased at the annual Cevisima trade forum in Valencia, Spain. More than 1,500 exhibitors attracted over 86,000 visitors from 140 countries to view a wide array of tile for commercial and residential use. Uchi from Saloni is inspired by the texture of Japanese rice paper. This ceramic tile series encompasses coordinating wall and floor tiles. The wall tile is produced in a 12" x 24" format, while the floor tile comes in 12" squares. Uchi offers light tones of ivory, cream, and gray. The series is complemented by a woven-rattan relief tile named Tatami, offered in 12" x 12" and 3" x 12" formats. Saloni, San Juan de Moro, Spain. www.saloni.com CIRCLE 206

This article informs that when architect Aldo Celoria began designing a home for his sister in Castel San Pictro, within the Swiss canton of Ticino, he was still a student at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Although the 3,770-square-foot house would look completely unlike the neo-Tuscan home next door, town authorities apparently recognized the merit of Celoria's scheme, and accepted it over a din of protest. Castel San Pietro — near the Italian border and not far from Mendrisio, where Celoria was born in 1969 — is a sleepy town with a population of 1,800.

The article informs that splendor of the Pantheon in Rome, attributed to Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus Hadrian, lies in both its architectural form and its engineering virtuosity: a rational domed cylinder of reinforced concrete that soars to a height that equals its diameter, reaching 143 feet at its oculus. Thanks to Joseph Aspdin's invention of portland cement in 1824 and Joseph Monier's introduction of the reinforcing bar in 1867, the 20th century was an era of intense technological progress in both concrete and steel. Trial-and-error engineering no longer takes place on-site or requires knowledge of precedent. So extensive is the innovation in concrete that now a discussion of the material requires a new vocabulary of modifiers. INSET: Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete.

Recent discussions about innovations in prefabrication and modular or unitized construction methods generally focus on the aesthetics and economics of the final product. The process, or rather processes, of reaching the end tend to be described generically, as if all programs can be addressed the same way. The terms also describe a range of building products, such as the production of structural insulated panels and exterior insulation and finish systems, both of which are ubiquitous in commercial and residential building. The projects here can be described as component-based design, a term that lacks the preconceived notions associated with prefabrication. With the wealth of materials at hand, and the vision of what they can do, the editing skills of an architect in making material design decisions is very important. It is not the materials that are new. Aluminum has been around since 1807, glass since 4,000 B.C. It is the understanding of these components and the consideration of how they can be used together that opens up the design.