Daniele Iotti, finish designer at Arcobalenocolorlab, explains how the combination of flooring and wall finishes has become a process of listening and personalization.
In the world of interior design, the pairing of floors and wall finishes has stopped following predetermined rules and has instead become a process of attentive listening and customization. A shift that reflects a new awareness: spaces are environments to be lived emotionally, not just functionally.
Colour as a Personal Project
“There is no longer a trend or fashion dictating which colours to use; there is instead an awareness of wanting to design them,” explains finish designer Daniele Iotti. “Colour becomes something truly subjective, to be integrated into spaces based on many personal values.”
This evolution marks the end of simplistic, generic statements such as “green is relaxing” or “red is agitating.” Each person carries an unconscious set of chromatic associations that can overturn conventions. For this reason, Daniele adopts an approach that begins with dialogue and observation: “It’s as though the project is born naturally through conversation. You talk with the client and try to understand—beyond technical needs—what they are really looking for.”
The Importance of Materiality
In this process, flooring plays a key role. It is not just a surface but an element that communicates through its material qualities. “The floor is a colour as well as a material: a stone-effect floor has one aesthetic, white wood another, dark wood yet another,” Daniele points out.
When a client expresses the desire to walk barefoot on parquet, what may seem like a detail becomes a crucial clue. “I begin to understand that this person loves materials. I can probably propose wall finishes that aren’t just paints but material products with their own textures, linking the warmth of the floor to the warmth of lime-based finishes.”
Compositional Versatility
Choosing solutions such as Skema flooring offers unprecedented compositional freedom. Thanks to reduced thickness and quick installation, these floors allow interventions in existing spaces without invasive demolition, opening design possibilities that once required complex construction sites.
“A light oak floor pairs beautifully with beige, blue, rust, or green,” says Daniele. “Wood is a natural essence, and when authentic materials like iron, glass, and wood are combined, the result is always harmonious.”
Beyond Neutrals: Towards Personal Spaces
The era of the “taupe dictatorship” seems to be over. “Homes, once finished, were beautiful to photograph, but people felt they were living in something bare, requiring a lot of personalization,” the designer recalls. “If I have a very strong personality, a neutral home may be enough because I’m already ‘a lot’. But if I need a home that comforts me or supports me, a neutral house will feel empty and cold.”
The post-Covid period accelerated this awareness. Confined in our homes, we realized how much domestic spaces influence our well-being. This led to a renewed desire for colour.
Project: Rag architettura - Architetto Giuseppe Raimondo Ph: Daniele Di Lorenzo
Designing for Transformation
Another crucial aspect is the change in mindset regarding durability. “We no longer feel the need to create a colour that must last twenty years—or forever,” Daniele observes. “Today I’m attracted to this colour, so I use it… and tomorrow I’ll change it. It’s doable and easy to achieve.”
Floating-installation floors support this transformative mindset: “A floor that costs a little less, is quick to install, requires no glue, no dust, no debris to dispose of, and is also quick to replace. It doesn’t need to last a lifetime. If in ten years I feel like it, I can empty a couple of cabinets and lay a new floor.”
“In a recent 60-square-metre project I followed, installation was completed in a single day, while other works had been going on for weeks”—an efficiency unthinkable with traditional floors.
An Empathetic Method
Daniele’s work stands out for an approach that goes beyond aesthetic consulting, touching on psychological dimensions. He also uses tools such as the RAH Color test, based on neuroscience, to identify the palette most suited to each person.
“Sometimes I’ve proposed bold choices, thinking I had gone too far. Then those clients have come back to thank me—even five years later—when redesigning other parts of the home, saying: you gave us that colour in such an unusual way, and here we are again.”
In one particularly delicate project, he helped a client transform furniture inherited from her late mother, repainting it to preserve the memory without letting it become overwhelming. “At first glance I don’t always remember, but when I want to, I recall that it was the piece I used with my mother.”
This integrated approach—considering floors, walls, ceilings, and furnishings as parts of one system—gives spaces a soul that no render, no matter how sophisticated, can capture. Because in the end, as Daniele reminds us, “designing colour means designing emotions, memories, connections. It means creating homes that truly resemble us.”