Ascale Crotone Pulpis

A reading of Pulpis, a brown marble quarried at Santa Magdalena de Pulpis in Spain: a warm, relatively even earth-brown ground crossed by the finest white and gold veins running in almost straight lines. This warm tone has come back into fashion over the past decade, and turns up often in luxury retail and contract projects.

Ascale is large-format sintered porcelain from the Spanish maker TAU Cerámica: a blend of minerals fired under high pressure and heat into a dense, non-porous slab. It absorbs nothing and never needs sealing, and resists scratching, staining, heat and UV, so it works on a worktop, on a floor and on an exterior façade alike. In a kitchen it is unusually forgiving — crumbs, dust and water spots barely show on it, unlike on a white or a black. Supplied in the Velvet finish only, in 2 and 1.2 cm on a 162 × 324 cm slab and 0.6 cm on 160 × 320 and 120 × 280 cm slabs.