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april 23, 2020 - Ragno

StepWise™ Technology


The Group’s new patented technology for the most recent #ragno collections

Ragno surfaces, made with the new patented StepWiseTM technology, offer excellent compliance with the friction requirements of the most stringent non-slip regulations, married to outstanding style for products that are both pleasing to the touch and easy to clean. StepWiseTM porcelain stoneware can be sanitised with water and non-aggressive detergent, and is thus the ideal solution for both domestic settings and high traffic commercial applications like shops, bars, restaurants and hotels. The Contrasti and Realstone_Navigli collections, made with the StepWiseTM technology, offer highly original styling with the advantages of compliance with the most demanding technical performance specifications. #ragno brand collections have always combined a vast range of decorative options with guaranteed quality and technical performance.

StepWise™, the revolutionary plus

Made with advanced technologies, porcelain stoneware offers excellent mechanical strength and resistance to chemical aggression, wear, scratching, deep abrasion and bending; it is easy to sanitise and resistant to freezing temperatures, fire, mould and UV radiation. The characteristics and colours of porcelain stoneware are unaffected by age and atmospheric conditions. Despite what one might think, StepWiseTM is not a surface treatment but an intrinsic technical feature of the new products concerned. The Marazzi Group has implemented these specifications throughout the production process, from research into materials and glazes to the type of grinding and pressing. The new #ragno stonewares made with the StepWiseTM technology are also treated mechanically over their entire surface to enhance their soft appearance, while also providing a high dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF, ANSI American National Standard Institute). This coefficient measures the performance of tiles when wet: 0.42 Newton is the standard for surfaces) when installed indoors. StepWiseTM offers a DCOF of 0.60 Newton, far better than the standard requirement.

The #ragno brand is a historic actor in the growth and success of the Italian ceramic industry worldwide.

Seventy years of evolution

It was 1950 when Afra Fontana and her husband Romeo Giacobazzi, a member of the Tabina di Magreta farming and cheese manufacturing family and partner of Pietro Marazzi in the Cristallo cinema, decided to unite their forces with Vincenzo Gibertini to set up a ceramic company under the name of Ceramiche #ragno S.r.l. The name was drawn from sketches made by Vincenzo Gibertini on a sheet of paper to illustrate the hardworking nature of the spider. It was the first ceramic company to be founded in the post-War period. The new partnership was to change the destiny of an area which had previously been primarily agricultural. Ceramiche #ragno became a leading player in the growth of the Italian ceramic district, producing wall tiles for the home and, in the Sixties and Seventies, manufacturing glazed floor and wall tiles for the national and international construction industries.

In 1989, Marazzi acquired Ceramiche #ragno, its old rival in Sassuolo, thus doubling its turnover. The introduction of advanced automated production technologies at the start of the Nineties was matched by a redefinition of the company’s commercial and marketing strategies, now focussed ever more on the client and market, leading to the creation of an entire range of products intended to express the taste of the consumer. At last year’s Cersaie, the International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings, #ragno celebrated its seventieth anniversary, renewing its mission to remain a brand focussed on the requirements of its clients and #design professionals.

High performance decorative solutions

Ragno’s product offering has always reflected long-lasting trends in #interiordesign and furnishing. #ragno offers a full and ever more specialised range of indoors and outdoors floor and wall tiles in porcelain stoneware, white body monoporosa and mosaic, and works together with the world of #design with its flexible modular solutions for covering every surface in the home and the innumerable public locations which dialogue with the domestic dimension, from restaurants to hospitality facilities. StepWiseTM is a new process used by #ragno for its Contrasti and Realstone_Navigli collections.

The Contrasti collection

www.ragno.it/collezioni/contrasti/

Contrasti is a collection of 20×20 cm porcelain stoneware cement tiles in six powdery colours: four neutral ones – Bianco, Grigio, Beige and Antracite – and two livelier, more intense colours – Celadon, a novel interpretation of green, and Ottanio. Thanks to new developments in super-matte glazes, Contrasti features a silky, very soft surface. The range is rounded out with the Tappeti and Decori Mix decorative collections. The Tappeti patterns depend on the colours, whether floral or decorative, and are available in all colour variants. The Decori Mix feature sixteen patterns in the floral and geometrical patterns of the Tappeti, both positive and negative, along with their own unique designs, in Ottanio, Antracite and Grigio on a white background. The colour palette and decorative options are ideal for lively, colourful settings: the floral patterns use two-colour contrasts in contemporary mood while the geometrical patterns, with their clean, decisive styling, give any surface a strong visual identity.

The Realstone_Navigli collection

www.ragno.it/collezioni/realstone_navigli/

This stone effect porcelain stoneware collection is expanded with the new Navigli variant, inspired by “aggloceppo”, a cement based agglomerate made by mixing crushed material from the Ceppo di Grè quarries with Portland cement and water. The result is a fine-grained product which reflects the chromatic variety of the mixture of materials used to make it. The name Navigli recalls the historic canals used to transport the raw material from the quarries to construction sites in Milan. Navigli is available in two colours, Grigio and Naturale, and four ground sizes (75×150 cm, 75×75 cm, 60×60 cm and 30×60 cm). Two mosaics, available in both colours, round out the collection: a classic 30×30 cm tile with 5 mm tesserae and a 29×29 cm tile in a 3D effect and a more architectonic style. Realstone_Navigli also offers a thicker variant (20 mm) for indoor and outdoor walls and floors, thus making seamless transitions between the interior and exterior possible both in public commercial spaces like shops, restaurant, bars and hotel halls, as well as ventilated walls and raised floors.

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