Seven partners from Pentagram’s London and New York Studios joined forces with Astrid Stavro and Mallorcan artisan hydraulic tile, cement and terrazzo producer Huguet to create a unique collection of tiles and objects that went on show for the first time as part of 2022’s London Design Festival.

Established in 1933 and now run by Biel Huguet, Huguet has its roots firmly in Mediterranean culture, taking inspiration from its architecture, materials and light. Its hand-crafted pieces represent a new, more sustainable take on luxury, with each tile slightly different to the next.

At its workshop in Campos in the south of the Island, terrazzo and cement tiles are created in small batches using handmade production methods. Huguet is keeping these skills alive, by matching these traditional production methods with the very best contemporary design. 

In a project originally conceived by Astrid Stavro, seven partners who joined Pentagram in the last seven years were invited to create innovative and unexpected objects using Huguet’s traditional production methods and materials.

Specialising in graphic, information, industrial and sound design, the designers all work in the digital realm. The Pentagram x Huguet project allowed for a focus on materiality and craft, and a new methodology for approaching the process of design.

The results of the collaboration are playful and surprising, with an intriguing collection of pieces that effortlessly blend thoughtful, modern design with traditional craftsmanship and local, sustainable materials.

The Collection

Jody Hudson-Powell: Day/Night_Cycle_01

The starting place was thinking about a tile as a piece of technology, and how could a tile be additive and responsive to an environment.

I wanted to create a tile that wasn’t inanimate, through its form being persistent but with materiality allowing it to change somehow.

By daylight, the tile looks pretty, if ordinary, with a simple grid of convex dips. In the dark though, the tile softly glows, releasing energy captured from the day.

The glow is a helpful guide in the dark and the tile appears to come to life like a night sky.

The hope is that the tile bridges the night/day cycle, handing over its role when the shade comes and allowing someone to move through space without the need for electrified lighting.

Poem v1: Day/Night_Cycle_01

Stone walks in the dark,
a path to the park,
its surface cloaked by sand.

When the sun sets,
the forest floor glows,
revealing the passage of time,
the shifting light of seasons.

Stone walks in the dark.

Jon Marshall: Tilescape

Inspired by the order and rigour of an English garden combined with the aesthetics of a Mediterranean terazza, Tilescape combines tiles, planters and garden accessories into a unified modular grid system.

At the heart of the range are a series of terrazzo tiles that include borders and cut-outs allowing them to be arranged with plain tiles to create apertures or negative spaces within a terrace layout.

Terrazzo accessories including rings, cones and discs can then be used to create plant pots, planters, pools, birdbaths and seating, creating a unified landscape.

Luke Powell: Steno

Inspired by the geological process of stratification, Huguet and Luke experimented with building up coloured layers of the normally unseen tile base substrate and then grinding back parts of the surface to reveal the layers underneath.

Five variations of the tiered tiles have been created with either a raised layer (traditional white tile surface) or/and a recessed layer (revealed substrate), each revealing varying amounts of the material below. Based on Unicode ‘Block Elements’, the graduating tiles form a simple modular system that can be reconfigured in any number of ways.

Sascha Lobe: Universally Le Corbusier

Inspired by Le Corbusier’s study of modules and his use of colour and material, Sascha Lobe developed a flexible 18-unit tile system.

The concept is based on typographic elements that can be arranged into a myriad of mosaics or written words. Countless patterns and designs can be created by arrangement, providing complete decorative and creative liberty.

The typographic undercurrent pushes people—whether interior designers, typophiles, architects, homemakers or decor hobbyists—to see tiles from both an ornamental and systematic perspective.

The patterns, letterforms and phrases from the modular tile system can be fully bespoke to the homemakers’ needs.

This system can also be easily utilised for signage on buildings both internally and externally.

The modular font ‘Le Corbusier’ was first introduced as a motion projection on the Corbusier building in Stuttgart, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Weissenhof Estate from 1927.

Giorgia Lupi: 24 Preludes

These tiles are data visualizations of Frederic Chopin’s famous 24 Preludes, which the composer wrote while living in Mallorca from 1838 to 1839. Their designs fuse the math-based nature of musical notation with the lyrical experience of listening to each piece.

Each tile visualizes one of the 24 compositions, with different shapes and colours representing defining musical elements. Colour denotes whether the piece was written in a major key (reds, pinks, and yellows) or minor key (blues and greens). Thick horizontal stripes represent tempo, with more bars signifying a greater number of beats per minute.

Conversely, thick vertical stripes signify the number of octaves each piece covers. The run time of each piece in minutes, is shown by thinner, white bars running vertically. Finally, the musical characteristic of each piece—elegiac, scherzoidal, cantabile, and more—is visualized by the primary geometric shape that gives each title its defining character.

Yuri Suzuki: Totem

We wanted to try and play with the 3D aspect of the tile material, as well as exploring colour, texture and pattern. This led us to design a series of pieces which can be assembled in many different ways to create cute, doll-like figures.

Building them (and taking them apart) is fun and the tactile nature of the parts gives us a better understanding of the material and how it might be used. It was a big challenge for Huguet, but we feel like it was a great result.

Matt Willey: Coffee Table and Writing Desk

Coffee Table With Interchangeable Tiles

A cast cement coffee table with a top composed of handmade Huguet tiles. Each of the 16 tiles can be rotated, removed and swapped out to create a nearly infinite number of compositions, making the table an ever-changing installation.

The ability to remove the tiles encourages the owner to collect different sets of tiles created by artists in ongoing collaborations with Huguet. We created something that could last a lifetime, stand up to the wear and tear of growing families and multiple moves, and is not stagnant but rather dynamic by its very nature.

Writing Desk

A cement desk with a wooden base that creates a pinboard area and a shelf within its bracketed form. The vertical face of the desk has a grid of 39 iron circles allowing the user to ‘pin’ items (postcards, notes, etc.) using magnets. The iron circles will oxidise and change colour—age—over time. 

Astrid Stavro: RE Tiles

Huguet’s work is a reflection of Mediterranean culture, tradition and values. The RE Tiles celebrate the beauty and heritage of the Mediterranean as well as Huguet’s relentless commitment to innovation and sustainability.

Focusing on creating awareness on sustainability and climate change, the tiles are an ongoing series of experimental tiles based on recyclable materials endemic to the Mediterranean.

Posidonia Tiles

Known as “the lungs of the Mediterranean”, Posidonia Oceanica is one of the world’s most powerful, natural defences against climate change, playing a key role in preserving the marine ecosystem.

The Posidonia tiles create awareness around the endangered underwater meadows of Posidonia seagrass surrounding the Balearic Islands. The tiles are made using two parts of the posidonia plant: the dry, ribbon-like posidonia leaves and pieces of Neptune balls (bundled seagrass fibre) found washed up on Mallorcan beaches.

The area between Mallorca and Formentera was designated a world heritage site by Unesco over 20 years ago, and is now in decline from excessive tourism, fishing, shoreline construction, boat anchoring and rising temperatures. This is driving the posidonia meadows to destruction at speed, with dire repercussions for our ecosystem.

The Pentagram x Huguet collection is available to order from huguetmallorca.com.