Italtile’s New Eco-Chic Showroom In Walmer

Italtile founder Giovanni Ravazzotti’s 1969 dream of Beautiful Living has burgeoned into a highly sought-after way of life for style-conscious homewares shoppers across South Africa. In May 2022, Italtile broke ground in Walmer to build the 15^th showroom. A little over a year later, on 1 July 2023, the flagship eco-chic showroom opened its doors. Italtile’s signature brand of timeless elegance and professional, design-certified service is all set to elevate the luxury décor shopping experience for ‘stylistas’ in the Eastern Cape.

As the launch date drew nearer during the usual last-minute challenges, Joint venture partner, Johan Kemper worked tirelessly, around the clock, with Gabrielle Jeppe, assistant manager to make the impossible possible and complete the final store set up in time.

The build and fit team.

Italtile consulted with architects Local Studio and principal contractors Alpha Omega (Pty) Ltd. With a specific accent on high design to underscore Italtile’s unique brand of style, the pressure was on the IID-certified IT IS Design team to produce highly original creativity, with Darren Bester and Jodi Day leading the way. The Space Mill team delivered top notch production work: Alicia De Andrade, Lolita Myburgh and Sipho Ngwenya expertly steered the project to completion.

 The inspiration behind the design.

The flow of the store was designed around the shape of the building itself, to utilise as much of the shopfront as possible: not only to frame the view of the customer looking into the store, but also to give glimpses of the essence of Italtile’s quality products. The design team spoke about their vision:

“We had already explored the house as a “symbol of style” in our previous Italtile showroom blueprints in Umhlanga and Boksburg. However, we wanted to further explore a more skeletal structure of the house which we felt added a visual lightness to the new showroom. This not only reduced the amount of material being used but also created points of interest for the customer to view through the openings in the structure. Overall, we wanted to offer a pleasing, visually stimulating experience of the space.”

Both functional and fabulous.

The design of the store needed to be first and foremost highly functional, due to the vast amount of product required to be on display. But at the same time, the chosen look and feel needed to evoke a sophisticated sensory experience, with each display specifically tailored to the item displayed on it. To this end, darker tone finishes were selected to anchor each design. This moody tonal palette enhances the beauty of each tile, tap and sanware item to fully showcase the high end features and attributes.

For contrast, the team also chose white oak, to add a touch of warmth to every display. With that subtle connection to nature, along with the occasional glimpse of greens and blues from the tiles, the customer subconsciously relaxes and enjoys the experience. This is the power of biophilic design at work, and it is a feature of all Italtile showrooms.

An eco-chic home for Italtile’s LiveGreen ethos.

Italtile’s green journey mandates a rigorously sustainable path, both internally and in the supply of its high-end product. The new Italtile Walmer showroom has a clear eco focus. From the locally sourced materials used to minimise the carbon footprint, to the eco-friendly finishes developed using only water-based timber treatments, each element embraced the principles of sustainable design. Ultimately, a sustainable showroom enhances the customer experience and allows each shopper to feel that they are ‘playing their part’ in a greater sustainable initiative.

The Italtile team had oversight of a number of green initiatives to lighten the energy and water loads:

-An indigenous garden has been planted, using only waterwise plants endemic to the region. Once it’s established, it will need very little water to maintain.

-A borehole has been installed to provide water for the flushing of toilets and urinals. This was to minimise the dependence on the Council’s supply: the water network is under severe strain in the Eastern Cape.

-Polycarbonate sheeting was used to flood the showroom with natural light. 

-Face brick clads the external walls, to reduce the need for maintenance.

-Fire rated dry walling has been inserted in the dividing walls to reduce both the number of bricks used, and the energy used in manufacture.

Major challenges were overcome.

Johan Kemper is no stranger to The Italtile Way, after many years in the business. He has deep experience in the high-level quality of workmanship and craftsmanship required to fit and finish an Italtile showroom. “It all has to be impeccable. But working in a new city was challenging: to find local people with the relevant installation skills who have never worked with our size formats and incredibly high installation standards.”

Another pain point was not having a warehouse manager or assistant pre-launch; this caused more than a few headaches with managing the supply chain with material arrive from cross-country from stores and various suppliers. But today, a walk through the magnificent new showroom revealed nothing but stunning cubicles, breathtaking displays and seamless efficiency. A tribute to his finesse.

Collaborative branding.

Johan Kemper is bursting with pride for the entire showroom look, but when pressed, he mentioned his ‘favourite favourite section’ ... “my green kitchen, created together with our partner Easy Life Kitchens. It features our beautiful Sant’Agostino Wallpaper Print Tiles”. The kitchen was expertly installed under the guidance of Laura and David of Easy Life Kitchens.

Walmer style has just got hotter.

Johan and his team of design-certified sales assistants are excited to introduce an exclusive, elevated luxury shopping experience to lovers of luxury living in the Eastern Cape: Italtile’s special offering of ‘extra-mile’ service, deep product knowledge and exclusive collections of unique, modern tiles, taps and bathroom furniture. Not forgetting their Italian-blend cappuccino! As Johan says: “every customer has the right to a beautiful home”.

The Italtile Walmer showroom is open 7 days a week: https://www.italtile.co.za/storefinder/store/italtile-walmer