Designing with Tiles — Sabine Marcelis

Glass changes the way we experience colour. It captures light, reflects its surroundings and reveals different qualities throughout the day. In this feature, Sabine Marcelis shares the thinking behind her glass tile collection for Blēo, exploring how colour, light and material come together to create surfaces that feel calm, vibrant and constantly evolving.

Unlike many materials, glass never remains static.

It responds continuously to changing daylight, reflections and movement, allowing colour to shift throughout the day. This fascination with light has defined Sabine Marcelis' work for years, whether through sculptural objects, furniture or architectural installations. Translating that same language into a glass tile collection became an opportunity to extend colour beyond the object and into the surrounding space.

Rather than treating colour as a surface applied to glass, the collection explores colour as something held within the material itself. Light enters the thickness of the glass before meeting the pigment beneath, creating depth rather than opacity. The result is a softer, richer perception of colour that changes depending on where it is viewed from and how daylight moves across the surface.

The collection offers two distinct expressions of the same colours. GLOSSY tiles reflect their surroundings, creating movement and amplifying both colour and light. FROSTED MATTE introduces a quieter expression, gently diffusing reflections and allowing colour to appear softer and more atmospheric. Rather than offering two different palettes, the finishes provide two different experiences of the same colour, making it possible to shape the character of a space without changing the palette itself.

Scale plays an equally important role. Smaller formats create rhythm through visible joints and repeated reflections, while larger tiles allow colour to unfold almost continuously across a surface. Together, the three formats offer flexibility without compromising the simplicity of the collection, allowing surfaces to feel either quietly architectural or more graphic depending on the chosen layout.

Throughout the collection, Marcelis was interested in creating colours that could adapt rather than dominate. The palette moves between warm neutrals, soft mineral tones and more vibrant accents, yet every shade remains closely connected through light. Used individually, the colours create calm, immersive surfaces. Combined together, they introduce rhythm while maintaining a sense of clarity and balance.

Ultimately, the collection is less about decorating a room than about shaping its atmosphere. As daylight changes, reflections move and the surrounding environment shifts, the tiles continue to reveal new qualities. Rather than remaining fixed, colour becomes something living—constantly responding to the architecture and the people moving through it.

The Sabine Marcelis Tile Collection

Developed in three formats and available in both GLOSSY and FROSTED MATTE, the collection is designed to offer different ways of experiencing the same colours. Whether used across an entire wall, as a backsplash or as smaller architectural details, the tiles allow light to become an active part of the material itself. The result is a collection that feels precise yet playful, where colour is experienced through depth, reflection and changing daylight rather than as a static surface.