InterfaceFLOR provides finishing touch for Motherwell College campus

When Lanarkshire’s leading further education establishment, Motherwell College, came to specify the flooring for its new £70 million Ravenscraig building, it turned to Building Design Partnership’s (BDP) interior designer, Lorna Bryden, to create a stunning sustainable scheme.

Motherwell College’s Ravenscraig building was opened by HRH The Princess Royal on 15^th January 2010, and was designed to change the face of learning in Lanarkshire. A key element of the design brief was for the interiors to boost Motherwell College’s sustainability credentials from the floor up. It was also crucial that while the new build had a smart and contemporary interior scheme, any materials used offered outstanding durability and would not date over time.

Having worked with InterfaceFLOR and its extensive sustainable product portfolio on previous projects, Lorna worked in partnership with InterfaceFLOR’s Scottish account manager, Julie Keany, to specify stunning modular flooring products for the college’s campus. InterfaceFLOR provided a 300m² trial area in the college’s staff room, enabling the building’s users to experience the products’ high design content and durability capabilities first hand. Following this, Equilibrium, Heuga 731 and Palette 2000 were chosen for the final flooring scheme.

The 11,000m² installation features the hard-wearing tufted, tip-sheared textured loop carpet tile, Equilibrium, in four shades from its 24 strong colour palette. The product’s contemporary linear appearance delivers flexible design opportunities, which Lorna made the most of at the college, ensuring that flooring contractor, McGregor Flooring, installed the product in a novel way to give subtle changes in direction throughout the corridors and the library.

Heuga 731, a tufted cut-pile carpet tile with a luxurious frieze texture, and Palette 2000, which can be mixed and matched to create unique, inspirational designs and which prides itself on its durability credentials, were used in the nursery – which provides childcare for the local community as well as for the college’s students – and in the boardrooms and executive offices respectively.

As well as meeting the college’s aesthetic and practical requirements, the InterfaceFLOR products delivered a scheme with sustainability as standard. All InterfaceFLOR products not only have recycled content in their face and backing, but are produced using the latest in sustainable manufacturing technology, and complementary services like Cool Carpet and ReEntry take the work out of finding a sustainable solution.

Cool Carpet is InterfaceFLOR’s climate neutral carpet tile scheme, which offsets or balances any greenhouse gases that are emitted during the lifecycle of the product. This unique approach covers raw material acquisition, manufacturing, transport, use and maintenance, and even final disposal or recycling. Through its take back and recycling initiative - ReEntry - InterfaceFLOR helps prevent any carpet waste resulting from refurbishment being sent to landfill. In fact, InterfaceFLOR has reduced the volume of waste that it sends to landfill by 75 per cent since 1996 through ReEntry.

Alan Hewitt, Estates Manager at Motherwell College, concludes: “The new floors look really attractive, and have been well received by students and staff alike. As well as being able to stand up to the heavy footfall of all our visitors, we’re confident that the floors will continue to look smart and contemporary for years to come.”