The new Tiburtina railway station in Rome, Italy, was designed as a bridge-station between two districts, Pietralata and Nomentano, which have been historically separated by the railway line. The main objective was to build a very modern locale. The new railway station is the largest public space of the city with about 200,000 passengers per day. As a result, durable floors that would be easy to clean were a priority for the high-trafficked space.

ABDR Studio in Rome, the designer for the project, selected the Buxy Collection by Cotto d'Estefor the flooring. When manufactured, the tiles are pressed three times and fired for over 90 minutes at a temperature of 1, 230-degrees Celsius -- giving them the strength needed for the foot traffic at the railway station.

"A railway station is a challenge in terms of material, but the flooring at Tiburtina station is sensational," said Livio Spano, Materials Architect from ABDR. "To provide for the high volume of passengers, as well as the transportation to in-station stores -- bringing their goods back and forth -- we needed full-thickness flooring. We also wanted a very high anti-slip level to fight against the weather. Finally, a seamless inside and outside transition was desired."
The floors of the new station -- spanning approximately 430,560 square feet – are covered by 30- x 60- x 1.4-cm tiles. "The floor throughout the station is 1.4 cm thick versus an ordinary floor system which is 1 cm) thick," said Spano. "The flooring also serves a 300% higher resistance in terms of load-bearing."

Moreover, the tile floors maintain a perceptual consistency from indoors to outdoors, as well as have an anti-slip feature. Cotto d'Este made the steps inside the station on an ad hoc basis, integrating with rising parts in the flooring of the steps. The steps were specially made by Cotto D'Este to be anti-slip on the corner of each step.

The building and construction of this specialized building was made easier by implementing tile flooring. The technical and aesthetic quality of Buxy shows the great ability of Cotto d'Este to produce highly innovative products, obtained through a precise aesthetic as well as technological research, according to the manufacturer. The full-body porcelain tile provides unparalleled beauty, durability, ease of maintenance and cleaning.