At India Design ID 2026, Nexion presented Urban Landscape, a concept that explores how contemporary surfaces can interpret the rapid transformation of Indian cities through design, materiality, and storytelling. The idea of urbanisation becomes an immersive spatial experience, where architecture, light, and surfaces come together to evoke the rhythm and complexity of the urban environment.
The concept draws inspiration from the timeless urban skylines of Franco Fontana, the acclaimed Italian photographer. Urban Landscape reflects Fontana’s vision that “the beauty in the cities emerges from geometry and color, in the dynamic mix of materials and volumes”, translating it into a tactile, architectural experience that celebrates the poetry of light, form, and material.
Urban Landscape offered a narrative on how materials can contribute to more conscious and enduring cities. Through carefully composed architectural silhouettes and tactile elements, the booth invited visitors to reflect on the relationship between beauty, sustainability, and everyday urban life, revealing how design can shape not only spaces, but the way we experience them.
Designing the urban experience
Urban Landscape was conceived as an architectural narrative of the contemporary city. The booth took the form of a linear gallery with two opposing entrances, guiding visitors through a sequence of visual scenes inspired by the urban environment. Along the path, windows framed silhouettes of buildings and city profiles crafted in Nexion sintered stone, turning architectural imagery into material form.
The mirrors inside the windows amplify the landscape and skyline, extending the visual experience and creating a sense of continuity and depth.
This approach allowed materials to function as building blocks of a miniature cityscape, where light, rhythm and texture defined spatial identity. A sensory journey, where design, architecture and materiality converge to tell a story about the evolving language of contemporary cities.
Urban growth, responsible vision
Behind every Nexion surface is a conscious vision of urbanisation as responsibility. Sustainability is at the core of our approach: timeless aesthetics are paired with high-performance materials that retain their beauty over time, resist wear and deterioration, and reduce waste by limiting replacements. Through this philosophy, Nexion contributes to sustainable urbanization by offering everlasting designs that minimize environmental impact.
Our commitment extends to every stage of production. Highly efficient, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities ensure minimal resource use, while advanced water treatment plants allow recycling of water throughout the process. Waste from production, including alumina balls, polishing residue, unfired tiles, and coal by-products, is carefully reused, further reducing environmental impact.
Through these practices, Nexion surfaces merge beauty, durability, and sustainability, bringing a touch of Italian lifestyle to Indian urbanization and demonstrating that high-performance design can support cities that are beautiful, responsible, and enduring.
Experiencing Urban Landscape through Nexion surfaces
Through storytelling and immersive spatial experience, the booth invited visitors to reflect on how architectural materials can shape cities, supporting growth while honoring nature and fostering long-term environmental harmony.
Urban Landscape translated the idea of urbanisation into a visual and tactile narrative, where surfaces became the medium to express rhythm, structure, and spatial continuity. The concept came alive through a curated composition of sintered surfaces that worked together as elements of a miniature cityscape. Different materials like, marble designs (Marble Gallery), stone structures (Lithic collection) and concrete structures (Riga collection and Ombre collections) contributed to a unified urban vision, reinforcing the idea of surfaces as building blocks of contemporary environments, capable of connecting aesthetics, function, and responsibility into a single architectural language.
Dialogue with contemporary Indian art
This year, Nexion continued its dialogue with contemporary Indian art by presenting the sculpture “Wishing Tree Figment” by Sangam Vankhade. The intricate carved patterns of the artwork establish a direct visual and conceptual connection with the Trame structure of the Ombre collection. Both draw from architectural memory and craft traditions, translating them into contemporary surface language through rhythm, relief, and material expression.
This exchange reflects a shared vision between Indian heritage and Italian design sensibility, where precision, craftsmanship, and attention to surface become a common ground. Through this collaboration, Nexion highlights how art and material innovation can converge to create experiences that are culturally resonant and architecturally refined.
Cultural dialogue is also expressed in the VIP entrance table, clad in Nexion’s Carrara Delicato lappato matt surface, where high-performance, refined materials enhance both visual and tactile experience.
Walking the urban landscape
Visitors walked along a gallery-like corridor discovering the interplay of light, shadow, and architectural silhouettes. Windows framed cityscapes and building profiles crafted from Nexion sintered surfaces, transforming the material into a visual story of urbanization.
Miniature models of the Urban Landscape allowed guests to interact with the concept at a tactile scale, connecting the vision of evolving cities with the surfaces that shape them. The layout invited architects and designers to reflect, and experience how Nexion surfaces can merge functionality, beauty, and narrative, turning material into both inspiration and storytelling.
Every touch, every glance, and every movement within the booth was designed to reinforce the dialogue between urban growth, responsible design, and the subtle poetry of surfaces, leaving an impression of both the material and the message it carries.
Shaping the cities of tomorrow
Thank you for exploring the Urban Landscape with us.
Nexion surfaces are enablers of responsible urban design. Through storytelling, immersive spatial experiences, and material innovation, the booth communicated a vision where timeless aesthetics, careful resource use, and thoughtful design converge.
Sintered surfaces emerge as the ideal choice for architects and designers seeking to create cities that are beautiful, sustainable, and human-centered.
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