A house with only one right angle, and the porcelain specification built to match it

The brief

The client first came to Aura Surfaces extremely early in the project. The house had barely started on site, but he already had a strong idea of what he wanted to achieve internally: a large-format, polished concrete-effect porcelain that could run through the main living areas and complement the minimal architecture — a house designed across multiple levels with almost no conventional right angles anywhere in the property. The original direction was centred on a 1200 × 1200mm format. Because the flooring would appear across such a large proportion of the property, this was never simply about finding a concrete-effect tile that looked good in isolation — colour, movement, scale and finish all had to work with the architecture and stay relevant throughout a project that would take several years to complete.

Developing the specification

Over the following year, we sourced and presented numerous samples as the project and the client’s ideas evolved. This was a client-led specification rather than one handed to us by the architects or interior designers — our role was to keep searching until we found a collection capable of doing far more than simply covering the main floors. We arrived at the Mirage Clay collection, and it proved to be exactly the right fit: its understated concrete aesthetic suited the architecture, while the range of colours, formats, finishes and exterior options meant we could build a coordinated material specification across almost the entire property. Three colours became central to the scheme — Mirage Clay CL03 throughout the principal internal floor areas, CL04 for the exterior areas, and CL05 as the primary bathroom finish — in formats including 1200 × 1200mm, 600 × 1200mm and 800 × 800mm, with 20mm porcelain used externally.

From a flooring specification to a complete surface package

What began as the search for a single large-format internal floor eventually developed into a porcelain specification covering more than 1,500m². The Mirage Clay collection was used across the main living areas, bedrooms, seven bathrooms, gym, sauna, office, swimming pool areas, balconies, terraces and external landscaping. Different colours within the collection allowed individual spaces to develop their own identity while maintaining a consistent material language throughout the house, and porcelain was fabricated for the staircases so the surfaces could flow vertically between levels rather than stopping at each floor.

The problem: managing a changing project

As with most complex residential builds of this scale, the specification kept changing throughout construction. The initial order was around 1,250m², but as the project developed the client extended several of the external areas, eventually adding a further 250m² — ordered long after the original material had already been produced, delivered and laid. Wherever possible we sourced the additional material from matching production batches, so that colour and tone stayed consistent with what was already on site. That mattered because these additions were being made over a long construction programme, not as part of one simple order — even a slight shift in tone between production runs would have been visible across so much continuous porcelain.

“Ashley and the team have always been very good at sourcing samples for me and, if they have not had exactly what I was looking for, they have gone out of their way to find it. I will definitely be using Aura again on my next project.”
— Private client, Cuckfield

How it was resolved: storage and staged delivery

Managing the material was as important as specifying it. Rather than sending more than 1,500m² of porcelain directly to a live construction site, we brought it into our own warehouse, checked and organised it by build stage, and worked with the client and project manager to schedule deliveries as different areas became ready. Material was released to site in stages using HIAB vehicles, keeping the site moving without drowning it in stock it wasn’t ready to use.

The result

Shards went on to become an award-winning architectural home, and it remains one of the projects we’re most proud to have been part of. It demonstrates what can happen when surface specification begins early: a conversation that started with one 1200 × 1200mm concrete-effect floor evolved into a coordinated package of more than 1,500m², covering virtually every area of the property inside and out. The relationship has outlasted the build itself — we’re now working with the same client on further properties, including a new site in Marbella and another in Kingswood, Surrey.