Material Spotlight: CEDIT Compatta Collection.

A passion for earth as a natural material and for rammed earth, an ancient construction technique.

The COMPATTA collection, designed by Federico Peri, combines a passion for earth as a natural material and an interest in a very ancient construction technique. This unique catalog of porcelain stoneware slabs is created using the very latest ceramic product techniques, in which the “profoundly ancient” dialogues with the “state of the art”.

The primary inspiration derives from close observation of the many strata within the ground and the mixtures of elementary particles of which it consists. The design concept is completed by reference to the age-old rammed earth construction technique, used in northern Jordan since the eighth millennium BCE and widely applied in Yemen in many other desert or rural settings until the mid 19th century.

In this method, the raw earth is compacted inside wooden formwork to construct continuous structural walls, bearing walls or partitions inside homes, with a natural decorative effect due to the layering of the different shades of clay used.

When creating his project for CEDIT, Peri was also influenced by several design inputs: from rural African homes to the clear, simple geometric forms and curved lines typical of the work of Gio Ponti, the curves central to the modernist gardens of Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx, and the three-dimensional mosaics of English sculptor William Mitchell. In his murals in concrete, glass and recycled materials, Mitchell seems to combine some of the typical features of a variety of artistic movements, from Modernism to Brutalism, and also shows awareness of the issues concerning the structure of the landscape and the relationship with nature at the heart of Land Art. COMPATTA thus embodies strong links to the world of art and architecture, while bringing natural impressions with a remote, primitive flavour into modern living-spaces.