Some keen Leeds citizens have noted in late 2016 that the John Lewis Building in Leeds was not finished. While the store is certainly open and trading, the facade has a few blank areas, where our planning drawings showed glazed terracotta.

The original supplier of the material had gone into liquidation during the construction period, and it took a long time to develop an alternative product with new suppliers and to get the right warranties. We have finally inspected the new mock-up with the new tiles this week.

The decorative pattern is created by terracotta tiles coated in a bronze metallic finish, inspired by the rich terracotta heritage from the former Burmantoff terracotta works located close-by.
We designed 4 hexagonal tiles, which can be rotated during installation to create the appearance of a random, non-repetitive pattern.
The terracotta tiles were pressed in Germany by NBK. The innovative metallic coating is by Teamwork in Italy. The mock-up was built by Adept in Nottingham.