S-Tiles - tecnologie

TECHNOLOGIES FOR CHANGE

Globalisation stimulates thinking about the relationship between aesthetics, innovation and research: a mix which has determined the success of Made in Italy for many years. In fact, with respect to other countries the aesthetic factor has always been an engine for change, thanks to the typically Italian capacity of conjugating scientific and humanist culture. We think of the scientist-artist Leonardo and, more recently, the many design and architecture masters that have known how to combine beauty and functionality.

Beauty, today as yesterday, is a determinant factor in characterising the final product, but it is also an element able to force technology to reach for innovative results. A growing number of observers consider innovation as an essential condition for development. In fact in a highly competitive market price competition is unsustainable, particularly if the new entries on the global market are from those countries where social and environment costs are ignored. Therefore, it is vital for Italian producers to maintain their substantial on-going capacity to differentiate supply (new products or new functionalities) and anticipate changes in taste. In this sense the synergy between industry and research centres, such as universities and institutes dedicated to theoretical speculation or to experimentation, is fundamentally important.

Even if operating within a traditional sector such as that of building materials (tiles and bricks have been manufactured and used for millennia), the Italian ceramic tiles industry has been able to invest in research activities that have driven the development of new and advanced products and processes. Today as yesterday tiles continue to be used to cover floors and walls but, thanks to heavy investment in innovation, many of today’s products have technical and aesthetic characteristics decidedly superior, different and more advanced with respect to products of the past.