Designer Forum - October 2008

By Mary Roskilly

A constant influx of new flooring materials, patterns, and colors are introduced to the market each year, giving designers and architects seemingly endless possibilities for their projects.

At Tuck-Hinton Architects, the majority of our projects are civic structures such as museums and libraries. Not only are durability and ease of maintenance important when we select finishes for these projects, but so is the ability for the flooring to enhance the architecture and reinforce the concept of the design. Often we look to custom flooring to meet these needs. Fortunately, the set-up charges and minimum yardage requirements for many custom products are negligible, and the flooring manufacturer will work with the design team to make modifications to standard lines and provide custom samples.

At the Daviess County Public Library in Owensboro, Kentucky, the project was originally bid with sealed concrete floors in the majority of the building due to budget constraints. The library director ultimately wanted to have a material that would be durable and wear better than the 1960’s vintage carpet that was installed in the library they were vacating after they built this new facility. Replacing flooring in libraries is often expensive and difficult due to the amount of shelving in the building and is therefore not done often.

Prior to building this new library, the facility manager made a tour of several new libraries and discovered a library in Oak Park, Illinois that had used recycled rubber on the floor. So when the library received additional funding after construction was underway, recycled rubber flooring was added to the project.

While a little more expensive than other flooring options, rubber has acoustic and ergonomic benefits because it is quieter and softer. In addition, it provided us with design flexibility that enabled us to make the floor an active part of the overall design. We selected EcoSurfaces as our supplier, initially, because it had manufactured the floor in the Oak Park, Illinois library I mentioned earlier. Our goal was to create a pattern and colorway that was sophisticated and fairly neutral, and that would remain attractive for years to come. EcoSurfaces worked with us to customize the color combinations so the floor would work well with the maple paneling and other finishes in the building.

As with many of our projects, we try to infuse passive learning elements that are often “beyond the program.” The flooring in the children’s area of the library depicts the Ohio River as the boundary between Kentucky and neighboring Indiana. Large custom letter-shaped bookcases animate the space and the letter “O” identifies the location of Owensboro along the river. EcoSurfaces used our AutoCad drawing to water jet cut the river and letters in lieu of making these cuts in the field. The “river” was used to help lay out the track light above, which reinforces the curves of the river. Standard, brighter colors from the EcoSand line were used as inset story-time circles in the children’s program room.

On another project in Nashville, Tennessee, we were commissioned to transform an historic 1930s federalist post office into the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Many of the building’s finishes were covered in years of dirt and grime that concealed the beauty of the materials.

The terrazzo and marble flooring in the main lobby remained intact and became the basis for the palette of materials and colors that were used throughout the project. However, the green hues of the terrazzo and marble were hard to match or coordinate with the standard color combinations available for carpet and terrazzo. But Bentley Prince Street stepped up and became an integral part of our team, working with us to create custom carpet design that blended a combination of color and pattern that enhanced the existing materials as well as blended with the newer areas of the museum.

In both situations, the flooring suppliers worked closely with our design team to modify their products and provide a custom solution that not only personalized the project, but also enhanced the aesthetics, ergonomics, acoustics and overall function of the space.