When it came to refreshing the iconic firm’s central London office, ZHA turned to global flooring manufacturer and leader in sustainability, Interface, to deliver a statement flooring design in the company’s 1,500 sq metre office space.
The practice has been located on Clerkenwell’s Goswell Road since July 2021. The previous design embodied a classic and elegant design with a neutral colour scheme. But ZHA wanted to make a bolder statement to truly reflect and showcase its striking work to visiting clients, all while meeting vital practicality and sustainability expectations.
A connected space
The office spans seven floors and includes a lower ground lobby area, three work zones and a breakout area on the fourth level. All three work areas have a similar layout incorporating an open plan working space with meeting rooms at the lower end.
The Interface design team were tasked with providing a flooring design with subtle transitions, using colour to create fluidity throughout the space. ZHA’s main goal was to create interest across the floor, and the team wanted to achieve this through fading patterns with both neutral and bold colours.
The perfect palette
Interface worked closely with Zaha Hadid Architects to find the perfect flooring solution that would work best within the work zones. When Interface’s latest collection, Woven Gradience was released in September 2021, the team immediately knew it would be the perfect fit. The collection combines muted greys with bright tones including rose, emerald, forest and ocean to give designers the freedom to create long or short transitions and to create seamless walkways or zones.
Woven Gradience takes inspiration from the psychological impact of colour, nature and light to deliver a palette of dark, warm oranges, cool blues and forest greens which are grounded by relaxing greys. The deep, rich tones help end users to feel grounded and connected to nature while the grey tones provide neutrality and balance.
The collection also helps tap into the current ‘resimercial’ trend which brings an element of home comfort to office spaces. This helped to create a warm and a welcoming feel across the ZHA office, using greys throughout the meeting rooms which transition into bold hues in the collaborative working spaces, to evoke creativity and inspiration. There is a subtle nod to biophilic design throughout the space, particularly in breakout areas, where the team incorporated the calming tones of Woven Gradience in lagoon to create a relaxed environment for employees to take a break and switch off.
For the lifts, walkways and washrooms, Interface’s Luxury Vinyl Tile ranges (LVT) were selected as a more practical flooring solution. They are perfect for high footfall, easy cleaning and offer fantastic acoustic performance thanks to Interface’s Sound Choice™ backing. The Brushed Lines LVT collection was chosen for its unique linear texture which captures light as it shines on the floor and its wide range of warm and neutral tones. Woven Gradience and Brushed Lines were installed side by side without any need for transition strips to create a seamless flooring design.
Meeting sustainability ambitions
ZHA’s decision to work with Interface was down to the company’s wealth of experience in designing and manufacturing innovative, sustainable flooring solutions which are influenced by the latest trends.
All Interface flooring, including Woven Gradience and Brushed Lines are carbon neutral as part of the company’s Carbon Neutral Floors™ programme. Woven Gradience comes with CQuest™Bio as standard – a non-vinyl, non-bitumen backing made with a bio-composite, containing bio-based, recycled fillers and carbon negative materials which reduces the carbon footprint of the flooring by 33%. Brushed Lines, like all Interface’s LVT products, uses 39% recycled content.
Jun Lam, Concept Designer at Interface, said: “Zaha Hadid Architects have designed some of the most iconic buildings across the world, so ensuring that their London office truly reflected their work was key. They also understand better than anyone the importance of creating a space that has a positive impact on the planet so this was a central part of the brief.
“We spent a lot of time carefully pouring over floorplans to make sure we created the perfect design and Woven Gradience provided the ideal solution and then Brushed Lines couldn’t have complemented the collection better. We’re so pleased with the overall design we’ve helped to create which embodies the company’s values – the new office is a space they are proud to bring their clients and call their HQ.”
To discover more about Interface’s Woven Gradience and Brushed Lines collections visit the website below.
