Aragon wins NTMA honor for ISSA Resort terrazzo floor

By AI, Created 8:06 PM UTC, June 01, 2026, /AGP/ – Bucharest contractor Aragon won the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association’s 2026 Judges’ Choice International Award for a ballroom floor at ISSA Resort in Turda, Romania. The honor highlights a fast-moving, highly detailed installation that tied terrazzo design to lighting, geometry and luxury hospitality.

Why it matters: - The award puts a Romanian contractor on an international stage in a specialty trade where craftsmanship and technical execution are central to recognition. - The ISSA Resort ballroom project shows how terrazzo can serve as both a decorative surface and a design element that shapes the feel of a high-end event space. - The win is Aragon’s seventh NTMA award, reinforcing the contractor’s position in the terrazzo market.

What happened: - The National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association gave Aragon of Bucharest its 2026 Judges’ Choice International Award for work at the ISSA Resort Charm Ballroom in Turda, Romania. - The association presented the award on May 13 at its annual convention. - The ballroom sits inside ISSA Resort, a five-star luxury resort in Transylvania. - The event venue accommodates up to 800 guests.

The details: - The terrazzo floor uses a gray color study that moves from light to dark and adds rhythm to the room. - Brass divider strips shape the patterning. - The floor mixes standard and larger rounded Italian and Greek marble aggregates to add depth and texture. - Lobby and restroom walls use unground precast stone carpet panels matched to the floor’s epoxy color and aggregate blends. - A large chandelier, described by ISSA Resort as one of the world’s largest, lines up with the floor geometry. - The chandelier contains thousands of programmable LED glass tubes that change the lighting atmosphere. - Twins Studio of Bucharest designed the interior. - Twins Studio is the only Romanian design firm to have won the London Restaurant and Bar Design Award, for Biutiful by the Lake in Bucharest in 2015. - Mihai Popescu of Twins Studio said the terrazzo floor extends the hall’s geometry onto the horizontal plane and called terrazzo “the most amazing material from antiquity to today.” - Popescu said the design uses oversized elements that can hold their ground against the hall’s scale while leaving room for the space to shift from solemn to celebratory. - Aragon completed the installation in 60 continuous days. - Judges praised the project’s creativity, visual impact, refined shading and the way the floor and lighting work together.

Between the lines: - The project pairs terrazzo with lighting and oversized interior elements to make the ballroom feel flexible enough for different event types. - The award also reflects the NTMA’s broader international reach. Aragon joined the association in 2020 as its first member outside North America. - Aragon and Twins Studio have built a repeat collaboration, including the Tuya Restaurant project in Vienna. - That Tuya installation earned Aragon a 2021 NTMA Honor Award, and Twins Studio was shortlisted in three London Restaurant and Bar Design Award categories for the project. - Popescu praised the contractor’s professionalism, saying the work was driven by people from the owner to the last craftsman.

What’s next: - The NTMA says it has posted a full list of this year’s 17 Honor Award recipients at ntma.com. - The association continues to offer design resources, technical guidance and AIA-registered continuing education for architecture and design professionals. - NTMA Technical Director Gary French is available at gary@ntma.com for technical questions.

The bottom line: - Aragon’s award-winning ISSA Resort ballroom shows terrazzo still has room for high-design, high-precision work in luxury hospitality.