# Bathroom like tiles as cladding on buildings. China/Asia phenomenon



## Sergei Dekker (Nov 13, 2010)

Have you also noticed this in China?
It is something that I hate and think that Chinese politicians should illegalize, the overuse of tiles on buildings. It seems like the chinese like to over-tile everything, the outside of buildings looks like the inside of a poor and dirty bathroom/wc. It's most common in the poor urban villages of guangdong province but also as far away as Golmud in Qinghai seen in the picture below.










As a Chinese I get furious when I see a new building where the developer still uses bathroom-like tiles as cladding.

Here is an example of a 2012 Warehouse built in this design. It makes me so angry.









The state council should illegalize this.


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## VECTROTALENZIS (Jul 10, 2010)

I think it looks OK, better than concrete, they also use it in Taiwan and HK.

In humid environments they must use something that can resist it, and it's cheap and it's easy to clean.


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## drunkenmunkey888 (Aug 13, 2005)

You would think that this is something exclusive to China but that is not the case. I recall that a large number of buildings in Japan have bathroom tile cladding, in fact the Japanese were using bathroom tiles on their buildings even back when the Chinese were mired in the depths of the cultural revolution. The only thing is, Japanese buildings with bathroom cladding don't seem to look as offensive as Chinese buildings. I don't have time now, but I'll be sure to grab some examples.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

English Victorian and Edwardian building have glazed tiles on the outside as well. Although a lot more decorative than those shown here.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

I don't think they look that bad :dunno:, but then I've never been in China or Japan...


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## castermaild55 (Sep 8, 2005)

bathroom tile?
you mean this one?















most japanese house's outside wall is like this which made by thses


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## George W. Bush (Mar 18, 2005)

I noticed this peculiar use of tiles on the exterior, too. Aesthetically it is really awful. On the other side it is quite practical as it doesn't need any painting and is easy to clean.


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## DarkLite (Dec 31, 2004)

Quite common in Latin America to see some homes covered in bathroom tile, in some cases using insanely offensive colors. :crazy:
However, it's not normal at all to see buildings covered in them.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

As with many other finishing elements, there are good and bad ways of using each choice...

Tiled walls are good to deal with humidity but they need to be washed often.


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## JPBrazil (Mar 12, 2007)

This is common in Brazil too.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Looks a bit boring but thats mostly because of the lack of colour and decoration. Tiles are a lot better then concrete or glass at least.


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## Heightlover (Jun 30, 2012)

Easier to clean than normal materials? With regards to the Trocadero photo, yeah there are loads of (older) pubs in Britain with tiles like that.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

If properly installed, you can use pressurized water to clean it pretty easily.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Heightlover said:


> Easier to clean than normal materials? With regards to the Trocadero photo, yeah there are loads of (older) pubs in Britain with tiles like that.


A hell of a lot easier than brick, wood or concrete.


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## Rinchinlhumbe (Dec 20, 2008)

at least in the wealthy coastal region, this bathroom architecture is meanwhile out of fashion. When the Chinese economy started to develop from a humble base in the 1990s and there were no renowned architects around because of 40 years command economy plus the aftermath of the cultural revolution and space to rent was rare, these simple bathroom style appartments were state of the art, at least when you were living in gloomy hutongs or clay houses in the countryside before.

as mentioned earlier this architecture very conveinet to clean. A Chinese told me the blue glassed windows protect heat from the outside better than transparent glass (I always thought this blue glass shall give the appeal of modern bank buildings).

I saw several of these buildings being demolished in Pudong, Shanghai although most of these were constructure between 1992-2001, being not even 20 years old. It is not too dramatic that warehouses are still being constructed like this, at least we talk about warehouses not temples or luxury compunds.


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## gabrielbabb (Aug 11, 2006)

castermaild55 said:


> bathroom tile?
> you mean this one?


These are not bathroom tiles, they are just exterior tiles, bathroom tiles would be something like mosaics


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## sebvill (Apr 13, 2005)

Thats common in the poor neighbourhoods in Peru's coastal cities. As they said, its cheap and easy to clean.

Now that you mention China, is also very common in Chinese restaurants of middle and low level (Peru has the largest Chinese colony in LatAm and more than 1 million Peruvians are chinese descendants). We also have very trendy chinese restaurants btw (those dont use tiles).

I think most Peruvians are proud of the chinese heritage in our culture (mixed with our european, andean and black heritage).










http://camwatchblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/inside-sinosphere-chinas-new-diaspora.html


http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=401153&section=1


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## castermaild55 (Sep 8, 2005)

gabrielbabb said:


> These are not bathroom tiles, they are just exterior tiles, bathroom tiles would be something like mosaics


sorry


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## gabrielbabb (Aug 11, 2006)

^^ ?? Still normal exterior tiles... in Mexico City it is very normal to see old houses of the 60's - 80's with real bathroom tiles, which look disastrous for the outside, like these:


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## atmada (Jan 9, 2008)

sebvill said:


> http://camwatchblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/inside-sinosphere-chinas-new-diaspora.html
> 
> 
> http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=401153&section=1


Indonesia has the biggest Chinese population outside China, but I don't think many of them use such "bathroom-like" tiles for their house cladding.


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## BearCave (Feb 2, 2007)

I much prefer bathroom tiles over painted concrete!
Painted concrete gets dirty and shabby quickly while bathroom tiles can be kept clean easily.


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