Grid-like component with checkerboard view

Hi Guys,

Recently I've received a requirement to implement a Grid-like UI element, but without the concept of items presented in a classic tabular "item per row" view. So basically we have some DB entities that we like to fetch and present them in a checkerboard grid where each square is a DB entity. What we show can be a single item's property (name, picture etc.). Items can also be multi-selected, searched and filtered. Please see the attachment.

My question is how would you go about it? Vaadin's Grid and Table meet most requirements if it wasn't for the data presentation in this way...

Sebastian