Soily

Soily is an earth-like textured tile. The main components are old, unused terracotta tiles from the Soviet era in Lithuania and local soil applied to the latter in a specific way, creating a varying rough texture. Depending on the soil’s location, such qualities as shade and roughness of the tile surface differ bringing a unique character to the tile.

An imbalanced production and distribution of goods in the Soviet Union rendered excessive purchasing habits once the goods appeared available on the market resulting in huge amounts (much more than needed) of goods, in this case tiles, piling up in garages, cellars, and attics of residential houses up to this day, some of them without even having been unpacked. Even back then when these terracotta tiles were manufactured anew (more than 30 years ago), a respective industry statements were issued with a high concern towards the manufacturing-relevant resource such as clay becoming locally scarce, or worse yet, some of the country’s pits had already been entirely depleted of clay. Now, years are passing by those piles of material resource lodging in the corners unattended all the while being discredited by stigmas of the past. This project aims to rewrite the narrative of these tiles by humbly bringing it down to its materialistic essence – earth, by merging it with a simple pinch of soil creating new, modern rustic looks.

Soily invites to seek pure material appreciation that sweeps the bitter memory floor clean just as cleansing one’s palate to welcome a new taste. Soily tile ignites hope for a prolonged life of a well-deserved material and a slowed down extraction of virgin and non- renewable resources.

Available sizes: 245 x 55 mm and 150 x 150 mm