Factory of Ideas

The Factory of Ideas is a 105 year old factory building renovated to become the world’s only hands-on interactive facility where visitors can work with Ludowici experts to build custom roof mockups. The roof is a large part of any design – and extremely difficult to visualize. Environmental changes such as lighting, shade, rain, and working with natural material add subtle changes best seen in person. At the Factory of Ideas, a guest works with Ludowici experts to create mock-ups of the actual tile at proper pitch and orientation, and then test in various environments.

The visitor solves unique design and construction problems alongside Ludowici experts. Ridge, rake, eave and field tiles are part of mockups. Each visitor will be greeted by a Ludowici expert at the main office, welcomed, and then accompanied to the Factory of Ideas.

The Factory of Ideas is organized as a hands-on assembly line of possibilities where the visitor can interact with the industry’s largest range of tile forms, styles, colors and textures. Ludowici’s guests can then select, customize, match, modify and create tiles. If given advanced notice, Ludowici can manufacture custom tiles and construct a mockup prior to the visitor’s arrival, then the mockup can be modified as desired. Ludowici can also ship final mockups to the job site.

In the center of the space are three rail carts with adjustable tops where the mockups are made; two adjustable tops for large planes, one adjustable top for a symmetrical ridge. The mockups are then pushed outside to the Viewing Terrace, rotated to the proper orientation on a turntable and seen in full sun. Mockups can be modified as many times as the visitor requires, all with expert advice. Color blends can be refined, special tiles can be integrated, transitions can be studied and resolved.