Crafting Paper Tear Effect in Marble Flooring
- October 28, 2024
- By: Ar. Priyanshi Shah
- INFLUENCERS
Kirti Dodeja shares one of the extraordinary ideas of the paper tear effect for the flooring in their latest project Dance of Surrealism located in Goa. It was an achievement and marvel to observe how a traditionally hard material like Udaipur Green Marble takes on the delicate quality of torn paper - that felt almost surreal. The clients were captivated by the idea but executing it was a real challenge. The concept was to recite uneven, hand-torn edges of the paper in stone blending craftsmanship and creativity.
Dance of Surrealism
In project the Dance of Surrealism, we translated the client’s brief using this home as a primary home while being in the natural surroundings of Goa. To facilitate each room with a study for work-from-home. We closely worked with the structural engineer, architect, landscape, MEP and other consultants to deliver this project.
Colour of Goa
The colour palate represents fresh blues, greens and yellows personally selected by the client to represent a contemporary Goan haveli. The French windows were insisted to allow maximum ventilation, natural lighting, and a library and outdoor sit-outs. One of the most attractive aspects of this home is the "Paper tear” effect for the flooring of the First-floor master bedroom. This is opposite to the hard nature of the material (marble), to achieve the effect required a lot of trial and error with the labour on site. This was created with Indian green marble.
Experimentation of Paper Tear Effect
When we started exploring, our initial thought was to hammer the marble to give the desired effect but that would break the slab of stone into random pieces. As we needed rectangular uniform shapes we tested on-site with local labourers exploring various prototypes. In our first attempt, we employed a grinding tool to create uneven edges achieving irregularity but the edges were too sharp and our goal was to blend rectangular pieces with paper tear edges.
After our lengthy experimentation, we finally followed a strategy where we instructed labourers to use the blade to cut halfway through the slab that is 9mm of 18mm thick marble stone.
“Design a World with Access for All, We are all only temporarily abled”- Kirti Dodeja
It allowed the slab not to crack randomly throughout and to have a defined path to crack, creating a paper tear effect on the remaining half. We had tried this from the top of the slab. So the paper tear effect we got was at the bottom of the slab. To achieve this at the top, we reversed the side of the slab and cut through the blade to keep the green-finished side facing down. We achieved the top green side to have the paper tear effect. Here we finally achieved- rectangular, similar sized, paper tear edges marble pieces.
On-Site Execution
Later, we carefully with precision laid out the pieces ensuring they were equidistant from each other. We did it together with the on-site team and then the terrazzo mixture was poured. The balance was crucial: the ratio of white chips to white cement had to be right not surpassing the beauty of green marble’s paper-torn effect. In the end, it was all polished on-site evenly to bring the two materials into one smooth level of seamless flooring. It was the fusion of craftsmanship and creativity turning a conventional material into a tactile experience.
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