Up the Outside Wall: Trends in Exterior Wall Tile Applications featuring Crossville Collections

When it comes to tracking trends in tile, it’s important to look up, down, and all around. As our industry has welcomed a range of new formats and advanced looks, we’re finding tile being used by interior designers and architects on surfaces and in ways we once would’ve never thought possible.

Notable progress is revealed when we “look up” to discover unique installations of tile on walls. Both exterior and interior projects are taking tile to new heights—literally and figuratively, as specifiers incorporate the material to transform walls to achieve required performance and desired aesthetics.

Here are some Crossville projects that exemplify modern exterior wall tile trends.

Santa Monica Medical Plaza

For this project, the design team turned to Crossville’s porcelain tile panels—tile measured in feet, not inches—to clad the exterior of this high profile medical facility. The two-fold goal was to give the building a contemporary, sophisticated look befitting the quality of medical provided therein while also using a lasting, durable material that would perform well over time.

South Florida Law Firm

The exterior of this office building features our SpeakEasy porcelain tile collection with its warm look of weathered wood. This surfacing material creates an inviting, stylish appearance that speaks to importance and lasting quality. Of course, real wood would never hav been an option for the project, but the porcelain wood-look offers all technical performance required.

McGowen Station

Tile is often associated with true luxury, so it makes sense that the design team behind the creation of this upscale apartment community in Houston opted for Crossville porcelain tile panels for the building’s facade. The contemporary elegance of this extremely large format tiles proved to be an excellent choice to create the desired look in a material that will last.

North Beach Branch Library

Our Color Blox collection enhanced with our proprietary Cross-Sheen® finish clad the stories-high panels that make for interesting architectural elements for this San Francisco-area library. The design team opted to install the 12”x24” tiles in a vertical stock bond pattern that draws attention to the building’s dramatic roofline—creating a stunning aesthetic.

Visit our Case Studies gallery for even more exterior tile inspiration, and watch for more round-ups of tile trends coming soon, here on our blog.