A floor of Catalina brick pavers in Saltillo with a person walking across it, one foot planted and one blurred in the stride

New. Paver and cobble

CatalinaBrick and Cobble

A California island called Catalina. A Tucson mountain range called Catalina. One name spans the West. One brick lives in both.

Body
Clay, 2 1/4 inch
Sizes
4x8 and 4x4
Colors
Twelve
Made in
Gardena, California

Why Catalina

Two sizes in twelve colors.

A wire cut face, crisp square edges, a clean flat surface. The paver is 4 x 8. The cobble is the paver, reduced.

Catalina is clay. Twelve colors that run all the way through the body, so a cut end and a chipped corner show the same color as the face.

The face is set at the die. Clay is pressed through into the brick form and cut to length with a wire, and the drag that cut leaves is what you walk on. It is the reason a Catalina floor reads as brick rather than as a rectangular tile, and the reason no two pieces come out of the kiln matching.

Indoor and outdoor, underfoot and on the wall. The fired terracotta body is tested for use in wet and freeze thaw conditions.

Two formats, one body. 4.5 pieces to the square foot in the paver, 9 in the cobble.

Paver and cobble

One brick, cut two ways.

Both come off the same clay column and out of the same kiln, in all twelve colors. The difference is the cut.

  • A Catalina brick paver in Saltillo, shot at an angle so the wire cut face, the long side and the end all show Format one, paver Catalina Brick Paver CB-PAVER4X8-SALTILLO

    Eight inches on the long face, four across, two and a quarter deep. This is the piece laid in every pattern further down the page, and the piece the cobble is cut from.

    Nominal size
    4 x 8 x 2 1/4
    Coverage
    4.5 pieces per square foot
    Weight
    4.56 lb per piece
    Packed
    510 to a crate
  • A Catalina brick cobble in Saltillo, shot at the same angle, a four inch square of the same clay body Format two, cobble Catalina Brick Cobble CB-COBBLE4-SALTILLO

    The paver, reduced. A four inch square cut down from the same brick at the same depth, for tighter fields, borders, radius work and any layout where the paver is too long a module.

    Nominal size
    4 x 4 x 2 1/4
    Coverage
    9 pieces per square foot
    Weight
    2.28 lb per piece
    Packed
    1020 to a crate
Body
Clay, fired through
Face
Wire cut, square edge
Colors
Twelve, in both formats

Standard sizes, or custom. We cut the paver into the cobble, into half bats, and into the shapes a layout calls for. More sizes and face textures are on the way.

All twenty four, paver and cobble

Two coordinates

One word. Two horizons.

One word stretching from the Pacific to the Sonoran. Now it names an ARTO brick.

  • California Santa Catalina Island 33° 23′ N · Pacific Ocean

    An island twenty two miles off the Southern California coast. Named in 1602 by the Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno on the feast day of Saint Catherine.

    The Tongva, who lived there long before, called it Pimu.

    Built to live by the coast.
  • Arizona Santa Catalina Mountains 32° 26′ N · Sonoran Desert

    A range rising sharply north of Tucson, to 9,157 feet at Mount Lemmon. Named in 1697 by the Jesuit cartographer Eusebio Kino as he mapped the basin.

    The Tohono O'odham, who lived there long before, called the peaks Babad Do'ag.

    Built to live by the desert.

Catalina comes from the Greek katharos: pure, clear, unadulterated. The root the Spanish carried west on the feast day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, scholar, martyr, patron of craftsmen and potters.

Color palette

Twelve colors. One geology.

Flashed browns and iron spot greys. Saltillo warmth that looks sun dried. Reds that move from coral to deep clay to vivid sunset. Each color is fired into the body, not painted on. The brick wears the way the brick was made. Roll over any color to see a piece in the hand.

Images do not represent actual color. A fired clay body does things on a screen that it does not do in a room.

Patterns

Three ways to lay it.

The 4 x 8 paver is a module, and a module can be turned. Basketweave, stack bond, herringbone. Same brick, same coverage, three different floors. Click any panel to open it full size.

  • Basketweave Shown in Saltillo

    Pairs laid at right angles, turning at every unit.

  • Stack bond Shown in Dark Ironspot

    Every joint aligned, running in a straight grid.

  • Herringbone Shown in Rose Tan

    Set at forty five degrees, each unit locking against the next.

Every color lays every way. The pattern does not change the coverage either, four and a half pieces to the square foot in all three. What changes is the cutting at the edges, and we cut.

How it is made

A simple product. A raw building material.

Catalina is clay, extruded, fired. Sometimes we cut it. Sometimes we glaze it. Color you can feel. Texture you can see.

  • I Extrude

    Clay pressed through a die into the brick form. The wire cut face is set here.

  • II Fire

    Kiln fired through the body. The twelve colors hold in the clay itself, fired in rather than coated on.

  • III Cut

    Standard sizes, or custom. The paver and the cobble are the standard two, and everything else is a cut off the same column.

  • IV Glaze

    On request. A glaze over this body is custom work, and so is matching a color you bring us.

Installation

Set it the way the project asks for it.

Two and a quarter inches of fired clay goes down three ways. What decides which is not the brick. It is what sits under it.

  • ISandset

    Direct over a compacted base, the way Roman roads were laid.

    Patios, driveways, paths.

  • IIThinset

    Over slab, prepared mortar bed, or backer board.

    Indoor floors, walls, fireplaces.

  • IIIMortared

    Full mortar bed and joints.

    Structural walls, façades, deep pattern work.

Send us the job and the substrate. Which method is right depends on what is under the brick, and we will tell you which one it is.

Custom is the standard

Two pieces or ten thousand

We started as a custom shop and we still run that way. Send a chip. Bring a swatch. Show us what you're building. We develop custom glazes, custom shapes and custom color matches. A sample is run before any production commitment.

  • Custom Color
  • Custom Shape
  • Historical Match
  • Color Match
  • Two Pieces
  • Two Pallets

The material

Built to outlast the install

The craft is in the maker's hands. The performance is in the fired clay body. ARTO publishes CSI 3-Part specifications and installation guides so architects and designers can specify with confidence.

  • The mix

    Full Depth Clay, Wire Cut Face

    Handcrafted in Gardena from high fired terracotta, two and a quarter inches deep. The clay column is extruded through a die and cut to length with a wire, and the drag that cut leaves is the face. Every piece is made by hand, so size varies a little across a run.

  • The color

    Twelve Clay Colors, Fired Through

    Fired into the clay rather than coated onto it, so there is no surface to wear off. No shade variation rating is published for this collection, which is a reason to order a sample rather than a reason not to.

  • The documentation

    Specs and Downloads

    A CSI 3-Part master specification covers clay tile, 09 30 13 Ceramic Tiling. The test suite is absorption, bond strength, breaking load, chemical resistance, freeze thaw and dynamic coefficient of friction. Specifications, test data, care and installation guides are all in the technical library.

  • The application

    Underfoot and On the Wall

    Patios, paths, interior floors, walls and fireplaces. The fired terracotta body is tested for use in wet and freeze thaw conditions, and the absorption, breaking load and slip figures are published as test data.

  • The industry

    Industry Standards

    Member of TCNA, NTCA, and CTDA. Custom products are available with project-specific testing on request.

  • The decision

    Sampling

    Always order a sample before you commit. What you see on a screen is not what your hand will know in the room. Samples ship from our Gardena facility.

Material truth

Rustic Elegance

Rough and refined at the same time. A handcrafted edge where no two pieces are exactly alike. A porous surface that ages with the room. Color that runs through the body, in a palette that belongs in a gallery.

It is not a marketing phrase. It is a material truth. Far from perfect, and that is the whole point.