Italian Surface Finishes
Italian decorative chemistry held in a modern UK Framework — chosen in the London Studio, taught in the ISF Academy and delivered through an Installer Network that works to the same logic.
ITALIAN SYSTEMS · SURFACE FAMILIES · CONTINUOUS BODIES · WATERPROOF ENVELOPES · ALL INSIDE ONE UK FRAMEWORK
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ISF at a glance
What ISF is
A Framework that holds Italian surface systems in the UK — linking Valpaint chemistry, the London Studio, ISF Academy and an Installer Network into one chain of responsibility.
What it does
Turns decorative collections and continuous bodies into complete bathrooms, floors and walls that can be drawn, priced, installed and cleaned — not just photographed.
Where it’s used
Homes, apartments, restaurants, bars, hotels, spas, galleries and studios across the UK where surfaces need to behave as well as they look.
Who this is for
Whether you arrive as a homeowner, a designer, a contractor or an installer, you step into the same systems, the same language and the same expectations — not a different story in every brochure or showroom.
Choose the door that sounds most like you. The Framework behind it is the same.
You might be planning one bathroom, a whole house or a key room. In the London Studio you see surfaces at full scale, talk openly about children, cleaning and budget, then leave with a surface plan that the Installer Network can actually build.
Instead of improvising from inspiration images, you get a coherent surface language: families, bodies, zones and Levels that already understand risk, behaviour and aftercare. Easy to drop into drawings and specifications without starting from zero.
From decorative walls to microcement floors and waterproof bathrooms, you learn real systems in ISF Academy Levels, then build them inside a Network where the chemistry, training and site expectations are already aligned.
What ISF does
ISF takes Italian decorative chemistry and builds it into three kinds of work: bathrooms and wet rooms that feel like part of the architecture, concrete-reading floors and stairs, and quiet or expressive walls that sit calmly alongside stone, timber and glass.
In practice, most projects sit somewhere in this triangle:
The Framework helps decide which systems belong where, how they connect and who needs to be involved at each step so the project feels deliberate, not improvised.
Surface families
You do not need a hundred different products. In the Framework, most schemes are built from four families — designer plaster, metallic & industrial, silk & suede and artistic textures — adjusted by body and protection depending on whether they sit in a bedroom, a stair, a restaurant, a lobby or a wet room.
The aim is simple: a small number of surface languages that you can recognise from project to project, with enough depth to feel individual but enough discipline to be specifiable, teachable and repeatable.
Continuous bodies & waterproof systems
Underneath the families sit the bodies: E-VOLUTION PLUS waterproof envelopes for bathrooms and wet rooms, and I-BETON PLUS microcement for concrete-reading floors, stairs and volumes. They carry the decorative language through zones that would break ordinary finishes on their own.
In the Framework these systems are treated as structural decisions, not last-minute coatings:
Studio · Academy · Installer Network
The Framework only matters because it runs through three real things: a Studio you can stand in, an Academy where systems are learned properly, and an Installer Network that carries those systems into homes, restaurants, hotels and public spaces across the UK.
In the London Studio you see the map at full scale. In ISF Academy you learn each system on real walls and floors. In the Network those systems arrive on site with people who already know the cycles and expectations, rather than experimenting with your project.
Surface families, continuous bodies, bathrooms and floors at full scale. Used for homeowner visits, studio partnerships and project reviews. Drawings, people and materials share the same table so everyone leaves with the same picture.
Six Levels, from foundations and decorative walls through to continuous floors and wet systems. Each Level is tied to risk, not price, and to the real systems that appear on projects, so everyone knows what they are responsible for.
Installers matched to systems and Levels, not just postcodes. Work is routed through the Network so bathrooms, floors and walls are built by people who already know the cycles, details and aftercare.
Italian chemistry · UK Framework
Where many surface houses lead with a single material story — a clay, a lime, a polished-plaster tradition — ISF starts somewhere else. We begin with Valpaint systems and build a Framework around them: one chain that links Italian chemistry to London Studio walls, Academy training and an Installer Network working to the same logic.
Valpaint brings the families — Meteore concretes, Klondike metallics, Valsetin and Valrenna fabric-like finishes, Sabulador and Arteco textures, plus continuous bodies such as E-VOLUTION PLUS and I-BETON PLUS. ISF turns those families into repeatable room systems: mapped to risk, zones and Levels; tested at full scale in London; then delivered through installers who have already learned the cycles, not just the names.
For you that means one organised language for Italian surfaces. The systems you see in catalogues and in the Studio are the ones taught in the Academy and carried onto site, rather than a different story at every step.
Italian chemistry, modern Framework. Surface families and continuous bodies organised, tested and delivered through one UK chain of responsibility instead of scattered products.
Exhibitions & fieldwork
ISF did not start as a brochure idea. The Framework was shaped on exhibition floors at Coventry, Surface Design Show, Harrogate, Cologne and beyond — and in the London Studio — where installers, designers and clients asked difficult questions in public.
Each stand is treated as a working laboratory: systems exposed to trade eyes, architectural scrutiny and everyday visitors. What survives those tests becomes part of the standard way ISF specifies, teaches and installs across the UK.
Exhibitions & market engagement ↗Field-built, not invented in a slide deck. Bathrooms, floors and walls questioned in front of real designers, installers and clients before they become standard recipes.
Field-built, modern standard
The surface world is full of beautiful legends: master craftsmen, ancient materials, finishes rediscovered from history. ISF respects that craft, but exists for a different moment — for projects where drawings, risk, performance and maintenance matter as much as texture and colour.
Instead of an origin myth, ISF offers a field-built Framework: Italian systems questioned under exhibition lights, pushed through tight programmes and live cleaning, then written into details, Levels and Installer training so they can be repeated without improvisation.
For designers, that means a surface language that already understands light, children, moisture and cleaning. For installers, it means systems that arrive with clear expectations instead of vague photography. For clients, it means walking into homes, restaurants and hotels whose walls have already been tested somewhere else before they arrive in front of them.
Concrete rooms without pouring concrete. Micro-thin I-BETON PLUS bodies running through entrances, kitchens and living spaces as part of the Framework, not a one-off experiment.
Next step
A single bathroom, a whole house, a restaurant fit-out, a hotel floor or a training path for your team — it all runs through the same Italian–UK Framework. Start with a Studio visit, Academy conversation or a simple message, and we’ll connect you to the systems and people that make sense.
If you’re a homeowner
If you’re a designer or contractor
Prefer to start with a message? Use the contact form to send drawings, photos, timelines and notes about bathrooms, floors and key walls. The Studio will reply with next steps inside the Framework.