Tiling Granada Square

Umhlanga Rocks is literally situated a stone’s throw from the iconic sedimentary beachrock of the Umhlanga coastline; so it is fitting that the hub’s newest mixed use retail space – Granada Square – features porcelain tiles that pay homage to the wild beauty of the area’s rocky bluffs. 

Towards the end of 2018, the property developers, Emira Property Fund, along with Evolution Architects and Linear Construction, reached out to Dale Hermanson, our Gauteng Commercial JV partner, and Victor van der Berg, our Commercial man on the spot in KZN, to select porcelain tiles that best underscore the high end nature of the proposed shopping centre, given its location.

After consultations, Italtile’s team-of-two brainstormed the brief and selected three colourways in the Atlas Concorde Klif range: Klif White, Klif Grey and Klif Dark. These magnificent large format tiles create interestingly contrasting shades across an area of approximately 1 700sqm, and add contemporary elegance to a space that has attracted quality retail brands.

Atlas Concorde are world leaders in the field of porcelain tile design and manufacture, meeting high standards of sustainability, and their Klif range is a magnificent remastering of the rock found in the Italian Alps nearby the Atlas Concorde factory. High tech digital processes have recreated the authentic granular texture of natural sedimentary stone with surface roughness and the sparkle of quartz crystals.

Klif’s stone effect expresses the beauty of living and working in a space that fosters a relationship with its environment. As Atlas Concorde states, Kilf encourages “an ongoing dialogue between indoors and outdoors.” At Granada Square, the essence of Unhlanga’s rocky bluffs are captured in the exciting Klif floorscape.

The Granada Square refurbishment commenced in October 2018 and completed finishes September 2019. As always, Italtile Commercial was thrilled to be involved in the project from start to finish. We take pride in our ability not only to interpret a brief based on the plan-design-build-finish journey, but also to take inspiration from the actual environment in which we work, and the team with which we collaborate.

For more information on Italtile Commercial’s high end local and imported products, or for a speculative chat about your next commercial project: https://www.italtile.co.za/about-italtile-commercial