Type 32 Slimtech has won the Good Design Award 2014

Type 32 Slimtech, the collection by Lea Ceramiche designed by Diego Grandihas won the GOOD DESIGN Award 2014, the prestigious prize with which the Chicago Athenaeum honours excellence of design worldwide. Several thousand contributions were received by the Museum for the 2014 competition. Over 700 projects from more than 48 countries were selected in October by a double jury which met in New York and Los Angeles and which announced the winners for each category, amongst them Type 32 by Lea Ceramiche which won the Floor and Wall Covering section.

The idea consists of two overlapping layers. The first is more material-oriented and is made of a silkscreen print playing with the theme of verisimilitude and reproducing an essence. The second, more graphical, consists of a decoration, based on the recurrence of an oblique line with four patterns. Starting from its format, the project represents a novelty. Instead of working with standard dimensions, the new line uses Lea Slimtech staves (20 x 200 cm) made to a new thickness of 5.5 mm.

Type 32 sets off with materials but then moves on to transcend them, transporting them to an abstract level where invention lends additional meaning to the word decorum, rewriting a new language, yet as familiar as the first four letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma, delta.
The inspiration ranges from art to graphics, but the themes of illusion and memory are also present. As in certain dreams, or better still, in certain visions, it becomes something other than itself, reinterpreted as pure image through a contemporary language that transforms the material into a mirage, while the classic ornamental lines become potentially infinite surfaces. A large carpet, basically.

The GOOD DESIGN Award crowns a product by Lea Ceramiche for the second time. City, the project reminiscent of urban maps, also designed by Diego Grandi, received the prestigious award in 2008, and this year it was the turn of Type 32. The award is another recognition that highlights the attention that Lea Ceramiche has always given to designer content, the company’s deep knowledge of materials and its constant commitment to technological research and advancement.