Downtown Design
redazione 19/05/2026

Where design meets experience

Iris Ceramica Group takes part in Clerkenwell Design Week with a program that brings together materials, technology, and sensory experience

While Milan Design Week continues to define a global design narrative, Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 offers a different perspective, one that is deeply rooted in the local architecture and design community. It is within this context that Iris Ceramica Group strengthens its presence in London, positioning its showroom as a platform for dialogue with the UK market and a hub within a wider network of European design capitals where trends take shape. For the 2026 edition, the Group presents a programme that moves beyond surface display, inviting visitors into a series of experiences where material, technology and sensoriality converge. A key moment of the week is the unveiling of Reloaded: Diesel Living with Iris Ceramica, marking ten years of collaboration with Diesel Living. First introduced during Milan Design Week, the project arrives in London with a renewed, more direct visual language. Spanning from large-format slabs to smaller, traditional ceramic surfaces, it brings together advanced ceramic technologies and a bold, layered aesthetic.

Defined by a vibrant, “pop” palette and unexpected material combinations, the project reflects Diesel’s disruptive attitude, translating it into surfaces that blur the boundaries between design and fashion. Presented through two colour blocks, the installation creates a dynamic interplay between formats, textures and scales, offering a highly visual and architectural reading of the project.

Among its standout expressions, particular attention goes to the Acid Majolica and Distressed Rug surfaces. Acid Majolica revisits traditional Portuguese ceramic decoration through a distorted, almost “acid” visual language, transforming into something unexpectedly contemporary. Distressed Rug, reinterpreting antique carpet motifs rooted in Persian tradition, is made possible by the DYS – Design Your Slabs – technology, where traces of time and cultural memory become part of the surface itself, allowing for highly individual and customisable compositions. Developed under the creative direction of Glenn Martens in collaboration with Controvento, the project reinforces the identity of Diesel Living with a contemporary, energetic approach that combines craftsmanship with experimentation. Alongside this, Sapienstone introduces three new surfaces – Travessa, Breccia Rosa 4D and Muschelkalk – each inspired by natural stone yet reinterpreted through cutting-edge technologies. These materials expand the expressive possibilities of ceramics, transforming surfaces into architectural elements capable of defining space with depth, continuity and character.

Muschelkalk by Sapienstone

Travessa by Sapienstone

Breccia Rosa 4D by Sapienstone

This year, Iris Ceramica Group expands its narrative further, extending its identity beyond sight and touch into a new dimension of perception: smell. Developed in collaboration with Campomarzio70, a Rome-based reference in artistic perfumery, and launched exclusively in the UK during Clerkenwell Design Week 2026, Iris Ceramica Group Fragrance marks a new chapter in the way the Group expresses itself.

Rooted in a strong material and technological identity, the brand extends its universe into scent, allowing its language of matter, innovation and design to be experienced through a new olfactory dimension, where sight and touch naturally converge. Centred around the iris flower – the symbol intrinsic to the Iris Ceramica Group’s identity and name – the fragrance unfolds through luminous, floral and warm notes, reinterpreting the Group’s values and materials in an olfactory dimension and ofering a more intimate, immersive way to experience the Brand.

Visitors are invited to engage with this new narrative through a dedicated workshop, conceived as a journey across four olfactory stations. Here, scent interacts with material mood boards and tactile elements, activating perception and memory, while the visual contribution of Lorenza Liguori adds a further interpretative layer, transforming matter into fluid, evolving imagery. More than a showcase, Iris Ceramica Group’s presence at Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 becomes an open invitation: to explore, to interact, and to experience ceramics beyond their conventional boundaries, within a space designed to connect the international language of design with the specificity of the London context.

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