2012 Vision Awards - April 2012

This is the third year of the Vision Design Awards, and the entries submitted continue to increase in number and quality. Continuing with our commitment to recognize projects for the sake of the design—not the pedigree of the flooring materials used or the designers creating them—we are excited to honor a great group of projects this year, projects that integrate flooring as a central part of the design concept and ones that exhibit forward-thinking creativity.

In a departure from the past two years, where the corporate category winner was also the grand prize winner, it was the education winner, Wight & Company’s design of Naperville Central High School Additions and Renovations, which took the grand prize this year. The judges remarked that, “Overall, the project just spoke to good interior architecture.” The high school design includes a sophistication that is more reminiscent of college than high school design, and the integration of the different flooring textures into the overall space was admired by all of the judges.

This year, like last year, the bulk of entries were in the healthcare, education and corporate sectors. The hospitality and retail categories had significantly fewer entries, even though activity in those two categories seems to be picking up. This likely represents a lag effect, because most of the submitted projects would have been initiated in the early part of last year, when those two sectors were still relatively quiet. Renovation in both sectors should be more robust this year.

Bentley Prince Street, Centiva, Crossville and Johnsonite remain our sponsoring partners for this annual contest, and Shashi Caan of the Shashi Caan Collective made a reappearance, for the third year, as a judge. New to judging this year are Jennifer Benjamin, interior design technician at HOK, and David Chamberlain, interior designer at Perkins+Will.

For this year’s awards celebration, we will be returning in early September to South Beach, Florida, where the fête was held the inaugural year. Representatives from each of the sponsoring companies, judges, honorees and their guests will be in attendance.

Floor Focus will begin accepting entries for the Vision Awards 2013 in January of next year, and it’s not too early to consider which of your current projects will make great entries.

To see more on our Grand Prize winner and the other Vision Award winners, see the April 2012 issue of Floor Focus Magazine.