Tarkett provides a warm welcome at Essex & Suffolk Water

Tarkett’s Epoque engineered wood flooring has recently been specified for the new operations centre for Essex & Suffolk Water. Designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects, the new facility provides flexible and highly efficient office space for staff relocated from sites across Chelmsford. Tarkett’s Epoque Oak Nature engineered wood flooring creates a warm, welcoming environment in the atrium, where around 350m² have been installed by AC Flooring.

Jacqui Martin, Senior Designer at FaulknerBrowns explained the choice: “The scheme required ‘natural’ finishes to complement the surrounding environment, as well as environmental qualities, and all floor finishes were specified with that in mind, including the wood, carpet and ceramic finishes in the atrium. Tarkett were easily best for value and quality. The oak is a strong theme of the interior scheme, included in the furniture as well as the staircase and flooring. There is even an Oak Meeting Room!’

Epoque is Tarkett’s premium engineered wood flooring collection, featuring a 3-layer construction that provides excellent dimensional stability, eliminating 70% of the wood’s natural movement. The top 3.6mm wear layer is genuine species wood that can be re-sanded four or five times for greater longevity and lifetime value. The Epoque flooring at the new HQ was also pre-treated with Tarkett’s Proteco Lacquer, which is reinforced to provide maximum protection for the new flooring.

Epoque planks are produced in several wood species including Oak, Ash, Beech, Maple, Merbau, Jatoba and Doussie, with a choice of finishes that can further enhance the appearance of the floor, such as aged, brushed, stained or heat treated, lacquered or matt lacquered. In addition to single planks, the Epoque range is also available in 2-strip boards.

Epoque floors are extremely easy to install, featuring the very user-friendly T-lock locking system, as Tim Hill at AC Flooring confirmed: “T-lock is a really simple locking system that doesn’t require any glue and locks the boards closely together without edges and unevenness. It allows the flooring to be installed really quickly and gives a very professional finish with no mess or fuss.”

The new headquarters for Essex & Suffolk Water was designed with the aim of achieving BREEAM ‘Excellent’, and involved close co-operation between the client and design teams to ensure environmental sustainability. Tarkett’s engineered wood flooring is a good option since it uses less of a slow growing hard wood tree than solid wood floors. Taking an oak tree as an example, this will typically provide 700m² of a multi-layer flooring with 3.6mm wear layer, whereas a solid oak floor will only cover 95m². As one of the world’s leading floor manufacturers Tarkett helps facilitate sustainable forestry and uses wood varieties that are guaranteed to be replanted.

The new headquarters project also recently won ‘Small to Medium Commercial Interiors Project of the Year’ at the 2010 Mixology Awards.