Conserving Foliage – Floor

Created in 2008-09, installed in 2013 – Located at the Conservatory Building in Kelowna BC, it was commissioned by Studio 101 Design, the Interior Design Group now part of MQN Architecture & Interior Design. Following the theme of the interior of the building, these two floor murals were inspired by tropical foliage of plants in different shapes and tones. All the tiles are handmade in the studio and glazed to colours specification. Two floor mural in similar design, different sizes were created for this particular project. We install our own projects, so we can take care of the final details.

• Design & production done by Carolina Sánchez de Bustamante
• Tile installation: Robbie Sterry and Mark Yanko
• Photography: Carolina Sánchez de Bustamante and Yuri Akuney

This floor mural is located in the main entrance foyer. Because its dimension, it was designed and produced in two parts: the central space and the perimeter space. Once the pattern has been drawn to scale, it gets transferred onto the clay slab.

This is just the interior of the central clay slab, where the pattern has been transferred on the clay surface and cut by hand.

Once the whole floor mural has been cut into the tile pattern, all the tiles in the respective order are moved to the drying rack. Because I don’t numbered any of the tiles for a project, it is really important to think before hand the logistic organization of the entire project. During the designing stage, is when the considerations from production to installation are made to minimize problems and to run the whole project as smooth as possible. A project can take from 3 months to a year and a half.

Once the dried tiles had been bisqued, they get prepared for glazing.

After the glaze firing, all the tiles are set on a mesh, making sure all the sides of the mural are squared to perfectly fit in the space left for installation on the actual floor.

This is the second floor mural, 5.5 ft.x12 ft. In this photo the mural is laying in my studio floor, being prepared for installation.

Robbie Sterry and Mark Yanko, at the end of installing the second floor mural, grouting the next day. These two amazing installers have what it takes to deal with such projects: knowledge, skills and patience..!