The works, the yard and the crew
Founded in 2016, AFINISHES manufactures hand crafted concrete tile in Karachi and supplies natural stone in slab and tile, cut to size in the same city. Design, manufacture and installation are in house, so one works and one crew carry a project from the drawing to the laid floor.
Concrete, poured by hand
Every range below is cast in our own moulds at the Karachi works. Pigment goes through the body rather than onto the face, and in terrazzo the marble aggregate is set through the full depth of the tile. A worn floor can therefore be ground back rather than lifted and replaced.
A format is a mould question rather than a stock question, which is the practical difference between specifying a cast tile and specifying a pressed one. Where the volume justifies cutting a mould, the tile is drawn for the building. Work made to individual order stays with the project that commissioned it and is not resold into the catalogue.
- Terrazzo tiles38 coded finishes, six base colours
- Washed terrazzo tilesAggregate exposed and left proud for grip
- Concrete cement CC tilesPigment through the body, plain field
- Moroccan pattern tilesHand poured encaustic, 17 patterns
- 3D wall tilesCast relief, six patterns in production
- Screen blocks and cement jaliDaylight and moving air through a facade
- Roof heat insulation tilesThree layers, three top finishes
- Outdoor tiles for driveway and pathwayUnits rated for vehicle load
Stone, cut to size in Karachi
Natural stone is supplied in slab and tile and cut to size here rather than ordered in as a finished import. Format, edge and thickness stay decisions you make on the drawing, instead of decisions made for you before the crate is opened.
Finish follows the stone and the traffic. Granite takes a flame, a hone or a polish and holds up under heavy footfall. Travertine can be filled or left open, vein cut or cross cut. Sandstone is usually left at its natural cleft for terraces and facades. Send the room and the traffic and we will say which of the six behaves in it.
- Marble slabs and tilesSlab and tile, cut to size in Karachi
- Granite slabs and tilesFlamed, honed or polished for heavy traffic
- Travertine slabs and tilesFilled or unfilled, vein cut and cross cut
- Limestone slabs and tilesSlab and tile, cut to size in Karachi
- Basalt slabs and tilesDark, dense and near non-porous
- Sandstone slabs and tilesNatural cleft for terraces and facades
Poured, ground, laid
Three things happen to a tile between the mix and the finished floor. All three happen inside this company, which is the whole reason the sample board and the floor match.
04.1
Poured and cured at the works
The mix is batched by colour and poured by hand into the mould, one tile at a time. A batch is the practical unit of work here, because colour holds truer across one large run than across several small ones. The tile then cures before anything touches it, and nothing is ground until it has.
04.2
Ground, honed and polished
Cured tile is ground back until the aggregate reads as one flat plane, then honed and polished to the grade printed on the sample sheet. Chip grades run from 1.5 to 3, and the grade changes how a floor reads from two metres away as much as the base colour does.
04.3
Laid and sealed by our own crew
Buying the tile and finding a crew to lay it are two separate problems, and our installers take the second one. They survey the site, check the screed and the falls, set out from the drawing, cut at columns and thresholds on site, and seal the floor before it is handed over.
Because the drawing, the pour and the laying are all ours, a problem on site does not turn into an argument between three companies about whose stage it happened in. It is one call to the works.
Every finish coded and photographed
38 polished terrazzo finishes are in current production across six base colours, each one photographed and carrying the code printed on its sample sheet. Name the code, ATW-1001 or ATG-2007, and there is no question about which tile is meant.
Come to the works and see the surface
The office and the works are on one site in D.H.A Phase VII. Samples can be collected there, or we send them out to the studio.
- Founded
- 2016
- Works
- 57-E, Street No.6, Jami Commercial,Phase VII, D.H.A, Karachi, Pakistan.
- info@afinishes.com
Send the codes and the site
Tell us the finish, the area in square feet and where the job is, and we come back with samples and a quote.