Rubble Tile’s Mosa Featured in Horace Mann Elementary School
Tucked into St. Paul’s Highland Park, Horace Mann is a K-5 elementary school with a focus on individual growth. Boasting extensive parent and community support, Horace Mann has built a reputation for academic excellence since being founded in 1930. They welcome children with open arms, cultivate their excitement, and channel that energy into the enjoyment of learning.
A school with a stellar pedigree should look the part, and that’s where Miller Dunwiddie Architecture comes in. With the help of superb installation work by Blackhawk Tile & Stone, they’ve given this school a masterclass makeover to create a scholastic space that shines as brightly as their students. The result is a blast of color that has both function and style, creating a guiding beacon for Horace Mann.
Mosa’s Many Colors
In order to create this vibrant array of tiles, Miller Dunwiddie and Blackhawk looked to Mosa, the leaders in Dutch tile design. Over 130 years of experience has been poured into Mosa, and their innovation has grown without limits. Sustainability is a key factor for their staying power, and Mosa is the first ceramic tile company in the world to achieve Cradle To Cradle Silver certification for nearly all of their tile collections. This long-lasting company isn’t going anywhere, and neither is its phenomenal creative vision.
Mosa’s Colors series is an example of their best work, offering intense nuance with fifty color options ranging from the very bright to the more muted glazes.The modular design of this glossy series makes it an easy fit with other tile formats. The sheer flexibility of the Colors series creates a toolbox with an untold number of options.
Because they’re customer-focused, Mosa understands that this myriad of choices may be overwhelming. To that end, they’ve created the Mosa Pattern Generator, an online tool you can use to create patterns and color blends before making your selections. The Pattern Generator makes planning your next big design a lot of fun, giving you a playful way to imagine installations.
Inside Miller Dunwiddie’s Design
Based in Minneapolis, Miller Dunwiddie has put its clients first since 1963. This architectural firm has a breadth of experience. From interior design to historic preservation and everything in between, Miller Dunwiddie’s trusting return-client base generates 80% of its business and cements them as a reliable, go-to firm.
Horace Mann now joins that happy group with their newly renovated school building. The goal was to incorporate their four school colors — purple, orange, green, and blue — much like their administration office did. Macaw Green, Cover, Blue Curacao, and Flame Orange were selected from Mosa Colors to decorate the school’s wings.
Since there were only three wings, the project shifted to giving each grade their own color. To meet the number of grades, Ruby Wine and Mazarine Blue were added to the project to bring the total up to six. The main floor, common path to the gym, and cafeteria use the four school colors in the flooring. The cafeteria space also has a blast of all four colors on the floors and walls. The color coding created an identity between the school’s wings and its grade, creating a system that provides just as much function as it does style.
Contact Rubble Tile today to get a jump start on your next tile project using Mosa Colors. Whether you want something splashy or subtle, Colors has what you’re looking for!