Specifying Profiles: Designers discuss how they integrate these transitional flooring materials into their projects – Feb 2024

By Jennifer Bardoner

Profiles are like glue, helping hold together different design elements both literally and metaphorically. In addition to joining two different flooring materials or connecting and protecting edges, they provide a finishing touch, whether by blending into the background or adding dramatic contrast. Additionally, profiles help safeguard surface materials from wear-and-tear, while also creating safer environments for occupants by eliminating trip hazards and sharp edges. We asked several designers to weigh in on the use and evolution of profiles and how they might be further enhanced to elevate the design experience.

PROFILES AND THE DESIGN PROCESS
“Someone once told me that designing really only occurs in how we transition from one material to another,” says Jen Bell Kennedy, senior interior designer for Lambert Ezell Durham Architecture, which handles a broad range of projects from schools and municipal buildings to offices and churches.

Sarah Rickards, interior designer for Dahlin’s Design Line Interiors, says she incorporates profiles into virtually every project, be it flooring transition strips, cove base or tile edge profiles. As part of Dahlin’s global multidisciplinary architecture and design team, she works on projects that span the gamut.

“Profiles help products hold up over time and encourage a healthy space,” she explains. “Profiles increase the overall safety of the end user population, eliminating trip hazards and sharp edges, and allow for easy cleaning. Unfinished edges and material transitions tend to be visually distracting, as well as present problems in terms of durability and cleanliness.”

Linda Snyder’s California-based design firm, Linda Snyder Associates, focuses primarily on hospitality work, and, as such, she often utilizes tile in her projects. She notes that unfinished edges are prone to chipping, which creates not only an eyesore but also a safety hazard. 

“Adding a profile protects the edge of the stone and can also create a much more finished appearance,” she says. “Every rule has an exception, but typically, we want to provide a clean installation and not draw attention to the profile itself.”

Previously, transitioning from one material to another meant an austere stainless steel transition, or perhaps one painted black or white, none of which offered a truly sleek aesthetic. Today, options include a range of materials, like brass, and a plethora of color options, including the ability to create custom colors.

“Product material is extremely important in terms of durability,” Rickards notes. “While mostly working on multifamily projects, it is imperative to select a profile material that will not only stand the test of time, but also be resistant to moisture and hold up in heavy traffic environments.”

With more emphasis now being placed on the design of profiles themselves, they are able to play an even greater

supporting role in the overall design process, both functionally and aesthetically. Kennedy tells of an instance when she had a large, open space with textile composite flooring on one side and stained concrete on the other. The textile composite flooring had a large radius edge, so the transition also had to curve. Noting that both Küberit and Tarkett provide a good range of colors and options, she ultimately settled on a very slim, curved resilient transition from the latter.

“It looked great,” she says. “The only other option was a very wide resilient transition with limited color options. It would have taken away from the design.”

Rickards recounts a project for which the client had a specific vision for the stairwells and was set on using two different materials for the tread and risers. Working with their Schluter rep, they were able to find a few different nosing options that would work well in the application.

“Not only was our client impressed that we had different style options to choose from, we were able to specify a color that worked well to blend the two stair materials together and create a seamless look,” she says. “Without the use of a nosing profile, we would not have been able to achieve our custom design and probably would have been limited to using a standard integrated stair system.”

NEEDS
The flooring materials that profiles help join together have evolved, yet profiles still have some catching up to do.

Pointing to the proliferation of LVT on projects of all kinds, Snyder notes some very specific needs in terms of both functionality and aesthetic. Whereas carpet is typically 3/8” and is laid on top of a pad and tile is 3/8” thick and carries the additional bulk of the setting materials, LVT is typically 1/8”, she explains. And, while the majority of LVT features a woodgrain, she’s not aware of any desirable profiles that do.

“Schluter has come out in the last year with a transition to 1/8”, but it still is not widely available and not available in a lot of finishes,” she says. “Prior to that, [such a transition] was only available in rubber, which is not an upscale finish and not preferred by the [hospitality] brands and certainly not preferred by us. I think we could go further with that, because there are a lot of these really shallow flooring treatments. And there are no woodgrain options on transitions that I’ve ever seen, except in rubber.”

Our sources all agree that, while much progress has been made, additional colorways would enhance the application of profiles.

“The more we work with and specify new and advanced materials, the need grows for a wider variety in profile sizing, style and finish options,” says Rickards, noting that not all profiles are available in every finish, which can complicate the specification process.

She and Snyder would like to see more decorative options, and Rickards also wishes for creative new designs that incorporate technology such as lighting. Luminescent profiles could help stairway applications, which Snyder sees as another general need.

“When doing hard surface stairs, whether using LVT or, more often, stone or porcelain tile, you need nosing that is going to create a visual contrast so people don’t miss that step and fall, and also that creates a little bit of slip resistance and is good looking,” she says, “and I can’t think offhand of any really good solutions in the market for that.”

Other functional needs include wider transitions to help meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, she says, explaining that “most of the transitions we use are not very wide, maybe up to 3/8” and some only about 1/8”, and the transition in height needs to meet ADA compliance, so they need to be wider.”

With most designers focused on the overall look and feel of a project and not trained in all the technical aspects and applications, more education and informational materials would also enhance the process of specifying profiles, our sources agree. Though they say their Küberit and Schluter sales reps are helpful sources of information, ready and willing to aid them in determining the best option(s) for the application, “you can never have too much education on transitions of all kinds,” says Kennedy. And Rickards notes that it’s helpful to be able to have detail drawings on hand to easily show the client or include in construction documents.

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Related Topics:Tarkett, Schluter®-Systems