Crystallising water, as in ice, provides the inspiration for the two fountains designed by Remer Rubinetterie, an international plumbing company.
The company wanted to redevelop its outdoor area, which marks the entrance to the industrial zone where it is located, with dramatic backlit glass elements and jets of water. The two fountains are intended to define the company’s image and touch on people’s collective emotions even while permitting different levels of interpretation. Both fountains incorporate a clear, expressly legible idea: the different states of water are the theme of the main fountain, while metalworking technology is the theme of the other.
To give unity to the projects situated on two adjacent lots, the company decided to build the two fountains out of the same materials. The pools of water were covered with Paragon (60x60 and 60x30) from Iris Ceramica’s MA.DE collection. The material’s high performance and elegant design motivated the choice, from the point of view of both architectural technique and the aesthetics of the composition. The material’s minimal absorption of water and its resistance to stains, frost and chemicals were essential factors in determining the choice of the material, though its appearance also played an important role: the unusual surface allows the water to act as a mirror, so that the pools look deeper and create shining reflections of natural or artificial light.
Architect Marcello Corti comments on the project: "Paragon has a surface made up of overturned prisms which create a luminous effect we might call the "pixel effect", because as you walk around the fountain you experience a form of perceptive dynamism as it looks as though clouds of light pixels are moving over the bottom of the pool. In actual fact, they are reflections of the light directed in those spots. […] The uniform surface of Iris’ Paragon tiles underlines the context, making it possible to cover surfaces at different angles and of different sizes to create a unified look as if the whole were covered by a single surface. The other aspect is their uniqueness, the fact that the product is the result of advanced research in porcelain stoneware, producing results which cannot be compared with any other material".
