Article Number : 6126 |
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| Date | 11/17/2010 6:22:10 AM |
| Written By | LGM & Associates Technical Flooring Services |
| View this article at: | //floorbiz.com/BizResources/NPViewArticle.asp?ArticleID=6126 |
| Abstract | By Liz Switzer In an economy that makes it necessary to do more with less, harnessing the creative energies of an entrepreneurial culture is becoming a way of doing business. And with that, cross-company collaborations are becoming an increasingly... |
| Article | By Liz Switzer In an economy that makes it necessary to do more with less, harnessing the creative energies of an entrepreneurial culture is becoming a way of doing business. And with that, cross-company collaborations are becoming an increasingly important means of advancing sustainable innovation. In a landscape where once only silos existed — everyone working in isolation — the landscape is greening with partnerships as conversations about sustainability and innovation are taking place on many levels among designers, researchers, manufacturers, vendors, architects and engineers. Some of the most innovative collaborations taking place today align the design, research and manufacturing sectors, according to Zorana Bosnic, vice president and sustainable design director in the San Francisco office of global architectural and design firm HOK. The very different functions of each group — designers who want new technologies and products to meet the goals of clients; the research industry that is ahead of the innovative curve; and the trendspotting manufacturer challenged with bringing its innovations into broad practice — have become the catalyst in bringing everyone together at the sustainable table, Bosnic believes. “In today’s market most of the outcomes are performance-driven, which means from a design standpoint we are looking at both active solutions and new solutions that will achieve our goals,” Bosnic said. “The cross collaboration between design, research and manufacturing is what will bring some really innovative results to people.” That is happening with the big carpet manufacturers like Bentley Prince Street, known for its design collaborations that include Clodagh Design, an innovative studio renowned for its Earth-friendly products based on the principles of Feng Shui. Clodagh’s designs naturally lend themselves to a low face weight that uses less material resulting in the Tucson Collection, made with 18% recycled nylon in the face fiber along with Bentley’s standard high-performance backing. Clodagh carpets are included in Bentley’s environmental product declaration (EPD) through sister company InterfaceFlor, including life cycle assessment results. Transparency of the product group is the most unique aspect to these products, said Kim Matsoukas, BPS sustainability manager. “The more EPDs that are available, the more customers will be able to use the information to make better choices as far as what a sustainable product is. It’s no longer enough to just partner with a designer and make product that is pretty and functional. Sustainability is something that will continue to be part of the conversation. Certain designers are more geared toward that topic, but more are getting on board.” Interface’s carpet tile design consultant David Oakey’s concern with reduced fiber led inadvertently to a pair of the most innovative products the company has produced in recent years: Wabi and Solenium. Low-fiber content Wabi has a very simple, minimal look while Solenium is made from recycled pop bottles like Teratex, a paneling fabric made by the Interface Interior Fabric Group. It is aimed at the educational and healthcare market, where carpet in the past could not be used because it was too difficult to clean. In looking at ways to enhance the flexibility of Interface’s standard higher tufted carpets, Oakey — taking a cue from Japanese tatami mats — played up the downside of carpet tile, turning tile seams into quarter-turned patterns. In the past, designers designed purely from an aesthetic standpoint but that is no longer the case, Oakey said, though looks still dictate the product more than sustainability. “If everyone took that as their approach, the principles can’t change but you have to get the consumer to want your product because it performs and it’s beautiful,” he said. “Good business and sustainability are going to get much closer.” For a designer, that means measuring product against last year’s benchmark, Oakey said, and taking that further each year with better content and sellable cosmetic appeal. But designers are not the only ones getting on board, said sustainability consultant Lewis Perkins, formerly with Mohawk Industries. There is a real shift taking place in the synergy between suppliers and vendors, he said. “You have BASF driving a lot of polymer innovations, for example. I’m starting to see more of those relationships. And innovation is more about the longer term than just what is going on in the product development room.” Even suppliers and clients are teaming up. Tandus Flooring in collaboration with healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente in 2000 developed green products for the company’s healthcare facilities, which eventually led to the creation of 10 branded styles designed on cushion specifically developed for the company’s facilities. The partnership was a marriage based on what Tandus and Kaiser both needed at the time, said Tom Ellis, vice president of marketing, and led to Tandus securing feedstock from waste streams outside the floor covering industry, yielding a high performance polymer constructed from recycled film found in windshields and safety glass. At the time, nobody was making a polymer that could be recycled and Kaiser was looking to get away from PVC, he said. “We raised our hand,” Ellis said. “We were willing to take that risk and spend the money to innovate that process.” In the last 18 months, Tandus has worked in collaboration with NatureWorks, an independent company wholly owned by international product and services provider Cargill, in its extrusion plant to make commercial, non-petroleum-based fiber using NatureWorks’ polymers. “Since Kaiser we have had more and more customers come to us asking if we could solve their problems,” Ellis added. Mannington Mills is also taking innovative approaches in its design collaborations with a current focus on “jazzing up aesthetics,” said Zack Zehner, vice president of hard surface commercial. For example, it’s has collaborated with HOK’s Chicago division in the development of its rubber and carpet tile Spectrum Collection. The construction allows for dematerialized face fiber at a lower cost with backing that includes 30% recycled content, 10% being post-consumer reclaimed carpet. HOK in turn is reaching out to the manufacturing sector through a new product design business that partners its designer with manufacturers to develop and market innovative products for the built environment. HOK Product Design licenses its designs to manufacturers for fabrication and sale, supporting the development of products ranging from architectural and interior design to consumer, healthcare and sustainable offerings with a commitment to enhanced environmental quality. Including Mannington, the new company already has secured business arrangements with manufacturing partners for 12 products designed by HOK ranging from rain gardens to flooring. Mannington is also going outside the box in pushing social media boundaries with the design community. The company last year started a contest that centered around NeoCon called the Tx:tile Design Challenge for which young designers submitted their ideas in exchange for a cash prize and the opportunity to have their product manufactured by Mannington. Now in its second year, the Tx:style online design collaboration community has grown to more than 13,000 members. Mannington has had tens of thousands of entries to broaden both its soft and hard surface product offering. “The idea of the contest is to get feedback from a broad array of young designers,” Zehner said. “They are extremely vibrant and important to the direction of aesthetics down the road, and social media is a way we can collect their ideas efficiently.” What Mannington also discovered is that sustainability is as inherent a deliverable as style in the minds of young designers, said Dave Kitts, vice president, sustainability. “It’s ‘American Idol’ in flooring with voting online by panel of judges and we commercialize their product.” While Mannington is finding ways to harness the energy of young, unknown designers, Shaw Industries’ Hospitality Group has partnered with iconic interior designer Thom Filicia of the former Emmy award-winning “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Felicia also hosts The Style Network’s “Dress My Nest” and authored the recently released book, “Thom Filicia Style.” Filicia, who has designed everything from W Hotels to celebrity estates and oceanfront homes in the Hamptons, has a style that is classical and simple, a match that fits Shaw’s cradle-to-cradle carpet program like a glove, said Desiree Perkins, vice president of marketing for the Shaw Hospitality Group. Building on Shaw’s EcoEvolution — made with cradle-to-cradle certified nylon containing 25% recycled content — the collaboration resulted in Filicia’s first tufted, CYP and print carpet collection introduced in late 2009. The effect is green luxury that is vibrant, sexy and sustainable all at the same time, Perkins said. A shared commitment to sustainability is what drew the two together. “He’s not Thom Felicia the diva designer; he’s truly interested in what makes a difference,” Perkins said. “He designed his collection in a way that people could see how it could be used differently to create patterns in the guest corridors from an organic standpoint that are very different than what we had seen before. He put higher focus on the design element within the guest corridors as a holistic statement between what was in the corridors and the rooms. And it does not cost more than non-sustainable carpet. The marriage between Shaw’s evolutionary base and Felicia’s design aesthetic brought to market a cradle-to-cradle certified product that for the first time meant no trip to the landfill when print carpet is specified, according to Perkins. Since the product launch, Shaw has seen specifications for sustainable product go up more than 90%, she added. But that kind of collaborative synergy doesn’t just happen by accident, said Emily Morrow, Shaw’s director of color, style and design. It is really a question of what is driving what — sustainability pushing design or vice versa. “It’s so regional, too. In parts of the country like Portland, Ore., famous for green efforts, designers are asking what is this made of and how is it made — all valid questions — then elsewhere we are actually educating designers so they will embrace the sustainable aspects of a product.” On the wood side, Shaw’s purchase of Anderson Hardwood Floors, which has its own in-house design council, has resulted in innovative products, Morrow said. For example, Shaw’s Epic line of sustainable wood flooring, a product group the company has continued to expand upon with more styling options, has undergone durability improvement with a distressing cylinder that Anderson developed. Shaw’s new Granden Road, named for a road in Cincinnati that is home to several design firms, comes from collaborative communication with that design community. The wants and needs of Mohawk’s customers have always driven its business, and that is no different with sustainable innovation, according to Jenny Cross, global sustainability director. “Our team of account executives brings forth a wealth of information to our product management group, which allows us to bring more thoughtful product innovations to the marketplace. Although we do not have what one might deem a structured program regarding designer collaborations and sustainable design, it is part of our daily workings, and the design community is a key stakeholder in our sustainability program.” Durkan, the hospitality brand of The Mohawk Group, has design partnerships with Todd Oldham, Virginia Langley and Tracy Lee Stum, and this year introduced collaborator carpet collections: Oldham’s Supernature, Langley’s Myriad and Strum’s So-dalicious. It is a willingness to be innovative and try new solutions — including new partnerships — that will take suppliers of the build environment to the next level, HOK’s Bosnic said. “I sometimes put out these ideas and hear from manufacturers that times are tough, it’s too risky to go out into research mode right now with everybody looking at the bottom line and all that,” she said. “That’s a fair point, but ultimately these are good times to think about innovation because for every great product manufactured we are all jointly resolving one big dilemma, and that is how to help our environment. Innovative solutions are going to be the ones that set them apart.” |