Natural materials or porcelain stoneware: an open debate among designers

Natural materials or porcelain stoneware?

When choosing surface coverings for design and architecture, there is no single answer. Choosing one material over another is not simply a matter of taste: the complexity of each project calls for a carefully considered decision based on aesthetic and functional requirements, the context and the client's needs.

Natural materials

Natural materials possess an "authentic" spirit and embody thousands of years of history. Through their material character, they convey distinct emotional and sensory impressions closely connected to our collective memory, their origins and their direct relationship with nature.

Wood, for example, expresses nature's artistry through its grain. It is pleasant to the touch, has a soft, unmistakable sound and offers fragrances that appeal to the sense of smell. A wood-clad space evokes warmth and comfort.

Stone has an ancestral connection with humankind: caves provided our earliest shelter. Stone tells a story; at first glance, it can evoke a rustic atmosphere and a sense of belonging to a place, or convey natural elegance. Marble is precious: used since antiquity to enhance religious and commemorative buildings, it recalls the "luxury of stone" in ancient cultures, while its composition conveys richness and grandeur.

The limitations of natural materials

Using natural materials as coverings in contemporary projects can present limitations related to their technical performance, and their sensory qualities are not always enough to make them preferable to newer products. Parquet may not be suitable for very humid spaces such as bathrooms or spas; porous stone in a kitchen or restaurant may become permanently stained; marble in a public square may crack and prove difficult to replace.

To meet the needs of clients who want the look of natural materials alongside practical, functional surfaces, the market has developed an alternative that reinterprets the aesthetics of traditional materials through surfaces with their own technical characteristics: porcelain stoneware.

Porcelain stoneware

First of all, porcelain stoneware is itself made from natural raw materials: clay, kaolin, sand and feldspar. Its roots lie in the history of ceramics and, before that, terracotta.

Its physical characteristics include very low water absorption, wear resistance and ease of maintenance.

Its versatility and availability in a range of sizes and thicknesses make it suitable for new buildings and renovation projects alike, while modern decoration technologies make it a design material with increasingly refined details and aesthetics.

The benefits of porcelain stoneware in design and installation

Traditional architectural coverings have clearly defined technical and aesthetic qualities that are closely linked to their nature and physical composition, often requiring designers to make compromises. With its aesthetic versatility and technical characteristics, porcelain stoneware responds to designers' desire for freedom of expression.

Concrete-, wood-, Corten steel-, stone- or marble-look porcelain stoneware: a single material can take on countless appearances while maintaining resistance, durability and stable characteristics over time, depending on its intended use and finish. The availability of slabs in different thicknesses allows designers to use this material not only for walls and floors but also for bathroom and kitchen countertops and furniture coverings.

Thanks to its high technical and aesthetic versatility, porcelain stoneware can be used as the sole material throughout a project, significantly simplifying installation. Combining different materials often involves several specialist trades (stonemasons, woodworkers and others) and multiple operations on site.

Using porcelain stoneware across different applications can simplify the coordination of work while offering a wide range of aesthetics and material inspirations.

What's more, using a single material can also offer technical and practical advantages. Thermal expansion, for example, varies from material to material, making it more complex to combine different products and potentially causing issues even after installation.

Thanks to its many aesthetic interpretations, porcelain stoneware makes it possible to create varied, personalized combinations, including different material looks, provided that joints and the installation system are correctly designed.

Porcelain stoneware inspired by natural materials

The porcelain stoneware market continues to grow, exploring new decorative effects and surface finishes and reinterpreting the aesthetics of natural materials. From wood and marble to concrete and stone looks, porcelain stoneware offers fresh interpretations of traditional materials in a broad palette of colors.

Digital design enables precise control over the visual characteristics and finishes of the materials used as inspiration: wood knots can be emphasized or minimized, marble colors intensified, and veining redesigned for corners or adjacent slabs. Porcelain stoneware does not replace nature; it reinterprets its aesthetics, offering designers and clients solutions with high technical performance.

What ultimately leads people to choose porcelain stoneware over another material—or vice versa—is the project's requirements and desired living comfort. In fact, combining traditional materials with porcelain stoneware can create unexpected connections and spaces with a distinctive design.

One example is the Hotel Radisson Santa Sofia, where oak parquet and marble-look porcelain stoneware work side by side to achieve the same result: an intimate yet elegant space in which natural aesthetics and technical performance exist in harmony.