How Clay Makes a Big Impact in This Vancouver Office

M Moser Associates plus TAV Ceramics equals abacus-inspired installations for the Vancouver, Canada, office of accounting-software company Tipalti. “Clay’s not fragile, it’s capable of holding its own in large-scale architectural installations,” asserts Arora. Read on to learn how the team created a series of tactile ceramic installations throughout the Tipalti office.

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Behind the Design of Hundreds of Ethereal Ceramic Beads

An iPad sketch of a ceramic installation — An iPad sketch by M Moser Associates senior associate Alex Watkins reveals one of two
installations that would be realized by Canadian-based artist Tanvi Arora of TAV Ceramics for Tipalti’s Vancouver office, a two-level 24,000-square-foot project also by M Moser. Sketch courtesy of M Moser Associates.

glaze being poured onto a ceramic disk — To form the giant ceramic “beads” that would compose the abacus-reminiscent works—one an all-white
partition, the other a blue ceiling-scape—Arora poured clay into molds in her studio, also in Vancouver. Photography by Luis Valdizon.

shades of blue and gray on ceramic rectangles — She tested multiple pigments before finding the shade that matched Tipalti’s branding. Photography courtesy of Tanvi Arora.

rows of hand-painted blue ceramic beads — She hand-painted 160 of the beads with a matte stain from Mason Color
and left 140 unfinished, before firing all of them. Photography by Luis Valdizon.

Tipalti’s Office Installation by the Numbers…

2,000 pounds of clay
21 designers, contractors, and engineers led by M Moser senior associates Vicky Bautista and Alex Watkins
Three days of installation
2 pounds of blue pigment
300 slip-cast clay beads