Customisable Flooring Helps Create a Unique and Personal Design

In this week’s interview with 2021 SBID Awards winners of the Flooring & Floor Coverings category, IVC Commercial, the designer shares details about the winning project, discuss the company’s journey to becoming zero impact by 2040 and sheds light on the key considerations for specifying floors for different environments – commercial and residential.

How important is it to enter the SBID Awards & receive industry recognition for your work? What are the benefits?

We invest heavily in design and product development and pride ourselves on creating high performance flooring for commercial interiors. Entering awards are a key part of communicating our story of innovation to the design community. SBID’s stature makes the awards a must. To be recognised gives the entire company a lift and supports conversations around new technologies to a wider audience. In short, it is testament that the solutions we produce are recognised as among the best in the industry.

What do you think made this particular design an award winner?

Studio Moods gives designers the flexibility to achieve a truly bespoke floor, which I believe is its strongest asset. The floor is available in a variety of geometric, tessellating shapes and various wood, stone and colour effects. By choosing a personalised combination from these building blocks, designers can create a unique and exclusive design. Ultimately, Studio Moods makes bespoke flooring more accessible. The floor’s performance and recycled content also add to the many benefits of this collection.

Tell us about IVC Commercial’s ‘Journey to 2040’. How does the role of sustainability influence your approach to product design?

Our Journey to 2040 is a road map to reducing our footprint with the ambition to become zero impact. It influences the actions we take not only in development and design but also in manufacturing, installation and end of life. This manifests itself in many ways: the recycled content of products and research into materials that are easier to recycle, more efficient manufacturing, loose lay installation and post-use recovery and recycling.

Your flooring solutions span a wide range of sectors. What are the key considerations for designers when it comes to specifying flooring in a commercial space vs residential?

At IVC Commercial we specialise in flooring for commercial environments, but we are part of IVC Group – with residential brands including Moduleo and Leoline. Key is the ability of flooring to respond to the challenges of the project in question. Broadly, providing durability and remaining easy to maintain are two of the priorities. Specifically, it can be acoustics – particularly important in a growing number of environments – comfort and the ability of the floor to respond to design intentions. In the majority of the projects, it is a combination of this factors that determine the suitability of the floor for the space in question.

Now that you’ve won an SBID Award, what are the next steps? Is there anything new you are excited to be working on?

Based in Belgium, our research and development team is always busy working on new designs and innovations and we’ve already launched some fantastic new products to the market since we won the award for Studio Moods. Our new Imperfection carpet tile collection – inspired by the Japanese world view of wabi-sabi – is our first to be made from ECONYL®, a yarn that’s made from nylon waste including old fishing nets. It also features a 94% recycled content acoustic backing, so it’s a carpet tile that performs well for the environment, looks fabulous and improves comfort – maybe it’s even another winner! Of course, there’s plenty of exciting developments in the pipeline too.

What advice can you give to young designers starting out in the design industry?

I’d encourage young designers to be solution and client oriented and to take inspiration from lots of different sources. As an example, for our own product design we look to fashion and global trends as key sources, so it’s best to be open minded. With solutions for specific challenges you may be encountering on projects, it’s always worth talking to your flooring supplier as your default flooring option might not always be the best one for the job in question. We’re always more than happy to talk flooring at any stage of the project and might even be able to suggest a better solution to meet your needs.

Questions answered by Alison McLaughlan, UK head of marketing, IVC Commercial.