The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to tile a bathroom floor, square tiles are the simplest option—they fit together without any gaps in a grid pattern that can ...

For decades, floors were expected to fade into the background. They were chosen for practicality, durability, and perhaps, a ...

Patterned tile finds a perfect home in this often-overlooked space. Discover how it adds character, color, and charm where ...

In the world of tile patterns, there's always been super-uniform (e.g. stacked subway tile) and super-custom (e.g. a black-and-white line drawing on the floor), and not much else in between. But we're ...

Tiles are a great way to add personality and color to your bathroom while also protecting your walls from moisture damage. But with them becoming the focus of trending bathroom design, it can be hard ...

New research sheds light on how a certain kind of pattern in nature arises. Nature is full of patterns. Among them are tiling patterns, which mimic what you'd see on a tiled bathroom floor, ...

I'm going to be building a patio in my backyard using some sort of paving stones. The exact size is yet to be determined, but not too large -- probably ~300 sq ft at most, almost square. The standard ...

The complex geometrical designs used centuries ago in Islamic art and architecture were planned with a tiling system that was not discovered in the West until five centuries later, two physicists have ...

Patterning and periodic structures are very important in physics. This led to a tremendous amount of work on learning what shapes can tile an area or fill a volume. It was found that these shapes must ...