Concrete, But Cooler
Los Angeles-based kinney block creates convention-defying concrete tiles – architectural yet quiet, designed to let texture and shadow do the talking.
kinney block began as a problem to solve, not a product to sell. While designing a co-working space on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, California, founder Talia Laconi couldn’t source the textured, sculptural brick she was imagining. “So I literally drew it in CAD and found someone locally who could make it,” she says. What started as a single profile – the 1729 – has grown into a collection of dimensional tiles that catch light, brighten corners and reframe what concrete can feel like.
Laconi’s compass is materiality. “I’ve always been more interested in the materials in a design project – the concrete, stone, wood, metal,” she reflects. “We love the real deal.” That instinct guides kinney block’s forms: architectural yet quiet, designed to let texture and shadow do the talking. “The goal is to make concrete more exciting and accessible; to bring a softness to a material people assume is hard.” Curves, radius edges and a tuned mix turn mass into tactility, building walls that read less as cladding and more as relief.
The brand’s origin story is equal parts intuition and persistence. Early images of the Venice project posted during construction created unexpected demand, prompting Laconi to spin up a simple website and, ultimately, a company. As shapes grew more complex, so did the craft. “Once I started curves, I needed to know moulds, concrete mix design, how to build the masters we’d prototype from.” Today, kinney block combines in-studio experimentation with its US manufacturing partners to expand its colour range, certifications and lead times, and has an in-stock program rolling out in November, conceived to meet designers where they are.
If the work feels contemporary, its ambition is time-agnostic. Fresh-poured concrete takes on subtle variation, tone shifting with sand and season, so surfaces mature with the spaces they inhabit. “We pour every day; it evolves,” Laconi notes. That living quality is why the tiles sit as naturally on a fireplace as on a facade or, unexpectedly, as display objects for food stylists and beauty brands. The medium proves generous.
kinney block is built for collaboration. “I want to be the resource people call when they have a problem they can’t solve.” The studio invites early conversations – custom field tiles, new profiles, even cross-disciplinary ideas in lighting and breeze blocks – because the best results arrive when designers, builders and makers meet in the details. The measure of success? Not virality, but ubiquity inside the right rooms: “I want people in a design meeting to say, ‘What about kinney block?’ and everyone knows what that means.”
There’s a simple engine under it all. As Laconi puts it, “It only fails if I stop, so I don’t stop.” The work advances one curve, one mix and one conversation at a time, turning concrete into a warm, versatile architecture of light. For those exploring a new surface language – quiet, sculptural, enduring – kinney block offers both a product and a partner.
