Industrial Design Trio Invents a Tile System for Three-Dimensional Space

A good designer, we were taught at ID school, pays careful attention to the transitions where two surfaces intersect. So it's fitting that this DTILE system was invented by a trio of industrial designers: Arnout Visser, Erik Jan Kwakkel and Peter van der Jagt, who all hail from the Netherlands.

Rather than merely producing flat tiles, the DTILE system also includes curved, corner, edge and transition pieces that allow the tiled surface to follow a three-dimensional shape.

Furthermore there are utility tiles and allow for shelves, hooks, vents, electrical outlets, drawers and the like.

Together these allow for designs that would be difficult to impossible to execute with ordinary tiles:

The trio first conceived of the concept in the '90s, launched their brand in 2010 (with in-house manufacturing), and today they sell in over 50 countries.