Flotex flooring as focal point
Flotex offers a unique combination of design flexibility, acoustics and easy cleaning.
There are places where students can sit, work and discuss. You tend to find that concentration requires quietness. In those spaces, Erik specified Flotex Vision, whereby the flooring catches the eye and adds another dimension to the room. Erik created various meeting spaces and gave each its own landscape.
So there is one area with a corn field, another with a tropical forest and another with a delta landscape. These landscapes have been printed onto Flotex and create a real focal point in the room. The long, wooden stairway and walls are partially covered in indoor planting, and the flooring features a wonderfully green grass meadow printed onto Flotex Vision. There’s a lovely green tulip field on display from our Flotex Dutch Design collection, too.
”There are also other Flotex prints that have been seamlessly inlaid into the rest of the flooring. Flotex offers a unique combination of design flexibility, acoustics and easy cleaning. In the centre of the main hall there are cube-shaped elements that can be used to climb, sit, lie and build on." Marieke: “Flotex is relatively compact and makes for a great transition into hard materials. You don’t need a transition profile to link one material to the next - for example, changing from carpeting to a harder floor. You can print it digitally: at Forbo, we have an image bank of 600 images. But we also make our own designs that come out super sharp. One of the advantages Flotex offers is a reduction in ambient noise. This works really well in all of those variably designed study zones."
What’s more, it represents the most hygienic textile floor and is easy to keep clean - you can just run a carpet cleaner over it. On standard carpets, coffee stains won't come out. But on Flotex, they will. It's made from 100% nylon fibres. The material is popular in higher education, and being used more and more in primary settings, too.” The benefit of having all those separate prints is that Flotex flooring gives you a way of clearly distinguishing and delineating rooms through the varied use of colour, prints and materials alone. We use more hard materials in heavy-traffic areas, and more soft ones in reception rooms. All floors are flexible, yet add to the overall effect. As such, flooring is becoming a more integral part of interior architecture, and increasingly, this means becoming involved and engaged as early as the design phase.
Marieke concludes: “Within higher education, we are witnessing the integral concept become more apparent, similarly to office environment interiors. There is more pressure to attract students, as the learning environment is increasingly being considered part of the experience; buildings are being used as a marketing tool. This building boasts a unique combination of the highly decorative and real practicality and sustainability. It’s worth highlighting that high-pile carpets are not so suitable for higher education. Indeed, it’s that combination of impact, sound reduction, sustainability and utility that is very appealing. It also means that the end uses will still be satisfied for a long time to come.”