Cult Gaia’s flagship boutique in Miami provides an arresting example of how ceramic tile facades can turn retail spaces into powerful artistic statements.
The store’s frontage expresses the ethos of both the brand and its creator. Its design aims to draw the observer inside to explore the boutique, while simultaneously projecting a powerful aesthetic into the environment it inhabits.
New York based Sugarhouse Design and Architecture designed the building and it’s interior in close collaboration with Cult Gaia’s founder and CEO, Jasmin Larian Hekmat.
The ceramic tile mural adorning the store’s façade is composed of 1800 hand-painted ceramic tiles. Cape Town artist Michael Chandler was commissioned by Sugarhouse to design the mural, which takes Henri Rousseau’s painting “The Dream” as its primary inspiration. Additionally, Chandler incorporates the aesthetics of the world-renowned tiles adorning classic Persian mosques, thus reflecting Larian Hekmat’s Persian heritage.
The tiles, painted with natural forms in a lapis lazuli blue onto a white background, are designed create a serene, natural and engaging image, with the broad-trunked tree of life extending from the ground level and dividing into ever finer branches as it ascends the front of the boutique. Chandler’s work reflects the increasing trend toward using natural forms and motifs into exterior and interior building designs.
At Digital Ceramics, our ceramic tile experts create engaging designs using the latest developments in tile printing. Get in touch with us and we can talk to you about how tile murals could become a defining element of your latest design project.
Talk to us today and find out how we can transform a project of any scale into an exciting visual experience.
