Trade fairs are places with great dynamics, noisy and highly crowded. They are exhibition and promotion centers where a lot of information is offered to the visitants.

Our design for an exhibition stand for the International Fair of Ceramic Tiles CEVISAMA wants to give the chance to stop and go into a calm place, void and abstract, which will helps the visitant to think over, where he will be able to refuge from the outer noise and to listen to those ideas that the information received has created in his mind.

Our intention is to create a shelter, a cave in the large hall 2 form Valencia trade fair; to generate an overwhelming space that will cover the guest, that will house him and embrace him as the potter hands surround a vessel to give it its form.

The challenge here is to build the cave using a thin material as the ceramic cladding. We decided to reproduce the volume by a lot of horizontal surfaces that simulate solidity thanks to their tight separation and the shadow they produce.

The ceramic tiles are placed on horizontal structures, stacked up ones above others. Each one received a cut in the middle that will define the interior void, by stacking as well.

The variation in the separation of the horizontal surfaces and in the distance to the exterior border produces a filter effect, that will make hard to distinguish the interior and will transform the light that will enter both form the access (a crack to go into the cave) and the ceiling (by an aperture with oculus form).

Some pieces wil go forward from the interior border to create a sitting; while in the exterior others will go behind to produce exhibitors in the edge of the volume, where different ceramic products will be exposed.

To build the project we propose porcelain tiles of large format (3000x1000x3,5mm), specifically those from Coverlam, Tempo model, of the Grespania company. These dimensions allow us to minimize the construction time and to have clean cuts, needed for the shape of the interior space. Placing the pieces in horizontal gives the possibility to observe their minimal thickness as well.

Once the trade fair has concluded and the exhibition space will be taken down, the 50% of the ceramic tiles can be reused.