A creative timeline
At Ateliers Zelij, we believe a surface is never simply a finish. It shapes light, transforms the perception of a place, reveals architecture and plays a defining role in its identity. This conviction has guided our work for more than twenty years.
Do things diffenrently
Zellige is our starting point. More than any other material, it has shaped our approach to creation and informed the method that guides our research into handmade surfaces today. We seek neither to reinterpret a heritage nor to reproduce a craft. We explore what this material can still reveal when it meets contemporary architecture, design and the ways we live today.
We have never seen zellige as simply a product or a craft. To us, it has always been a form of art.
Each collection is an expression of this vision. Each project tells a story. Each collaboration opens up a new territory. Our forms emerge from the inherent qualities of zellige & all materials we develop : its light, its depth, its irregularities, the perfect imperfection of handcrafted surfaces, the variations created through firing, and the intelligence of the hands that shapes our Models.
We believe in a form of design at the crossroads of art, architecture and a living craft.
Delphine Laporte & Samir Mazer
Co-fondateurs d’Ateliers Zelij
Illustration : Untitled (from the Mask Series with Saul Steinberg), 1962. Photograph by Inge Morath © The Inge Morath Foundation
Learn more about our surface development
5 Questions/Answers to Delphine & Samir
Why a "s" to Ateliers Zelij?
Ateliers Zelij has never been just one workshop.
There is the design studio, the workshops we collaborate with in Fez and Portugal, the places we visit in search of new materials, and all the encounters that become part of a project. There are also our clients — including architecture studios — who bring their own perspective to the work.
In the end, the plural says quite a lot about the way we work.
If Ateliers Zelij were a piece of music?
A polyphonic composition.
A precise structure, a few happy accidents, and enough space for improvisation.
What is material teaching you?
That material holds its own wisdom.
You can draw, calculate and anticipate. But when developing a handmade product, the most interesting part is learning to read the material — embracing the unexpected and letting go enough for it to reveal what it can become.
What continues to move you?
The encounters.
They have shaped our story, and continue to open new chapters.
Our journey has been built through extraordinary encounters: those who have shared and helped build a part of our path, those who have believed in and championed our vision, and all the clients who have recognised themselves in our values.
What does collaboration mean to you?
Collaboration can happen in many ways.
It can be a dialogue with a material, a colour, a technique or a new way of using a piece. And it can also happen through an encounter with another (designer, brand, creator, …), bringing a new energy to the work.
We love seeing what emerges from these exchanges: the unexpected combinations, the happy accidents, and the ideas that take a project somewhere we hadn’t anticipated.