5 New Trends in Commercial Flooring

When it comes to floor coverings, Building Teams can select from a broad menu of products, including carpet, polished concrete, and resilient surfaces like cork, linoleum, rubber, and vinyl. In the last few years, however, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and carpet tile have been carving out a bigger chunk of the nonresidential flooring market, especially against broadloom products. Proven performance, ease of maintenance, and design innovations are adding to their appeal for use in schools and offices, and they are making inroads into nontraditional sectors like healthcare as well.

Dean Thompson, executive director of the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, says resilient flooring has gained market share over the last several years. “In 2003, resilient flooring comprised 13.8% of the market,” Thompson says. “Now it’s up to 19%. LVT, in particular, is capturing some share from more high-cost, labor-intensive categories like ceramic and stone.”

Last year, for example, Shaw Contract Group formed a partnership with LG Hausys to distribute LG’s resilient products. The reason was easy to understand: “The LVT segment has been growing,” says Reesie Duncan, creative director for the group.

Advances in printing technologies, Thompson says, “are bringing great new organic-type visuals to the products.” For example, some LVT products can now simulate grout lines, tumbled edges, and other details that mimic natural stone.

Sustainability remains the overarching theme with commercial flooring. FloorScore, a green rating system for floor coverings, was developed by RFCI and Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) to test and certify flooring products for compliance with indoor air quality emission requirements adopted in California. A year ago, a new ANSI standard for resilient flooring was released. As a result of these developments, manufacturers have been eager to certify their products and introduce recycling programs.

Designers are responding to the industry’s sustainability message. “We really try to go with the greenest alternative with any type of flooring,” says Kristen Beighey, LEED AP, an interior designer in the Dallas office of Perkins+Will. Beighey says the firm had been specifying a lot of vinyl composition tile (VCT), but recently switched over to Armstrong’s Biobased Tile, which is made with rapidly renewable, U.S.-grown plant materials and emits a low level of volatile organic compounds.

“A few years ago, the resilient industry was focused on a single attribute: indoor air quality,” Thompson says. “Now, like other industries such as furniture and wall coverings, we’re moving toward more full-fledged, life cycle-assessment thinking.”

Out with the rug, in with the tile

Like many in the flooring industry, Shaw’s Duncan is enthusiastic about the growth potential of carpet tile. In 2008, carpet tile represented only 40% of Shaw Contract Group’s annual sales; last year, carpet tile weighed in at 60%. “As the price of carpet tile becomes more competitive and manufacturers are pushed to look at the minimum amount of material they put into their products, tile has become the commercial carpet of choice in the architect’s and designer’s world,” says Duncan.

Duncan says the ease of installation, elimination of downtime in the workplace, and creative freedom offered by carpet tile has made it the number one flooring choice in the corporate sector. It’s been an especially big hit with multinational corporations, in part because it’s easier to ship than broadloom.

Product innovation over the last three years has allowed designers to mix patterns and colors in creative ways, says Duncan. With office layouts being defined less and less by walls and partitions, flooring can be used to delineate collaborative workspaces and add punches of color to raise the energy level of office workers.

Another sector where carpet tile is gaining attention is education, especially the K-12 market. “Maintenance is usually the biggest factor for schools,” Duncan says. “They need something that’s easy to clean. If there’s a stain that won’t come out, they can just replace the tile.”

LVT broadens its scope

Meanwhile, LVT is expanding beyond its traditional use in retail to reach into healthcare and education. Julia Pierce, director of commercial product marketing and design for Armstrong, says hospitals and clinics centers are mixing and matching LVT designs in lobbies, while schools are putting down wood-look LVT in the corridors. “It looks less institutional,” says Pierce.

RFCI’s Thompson also notes that the healthcare and education sectors have remained active. “Resilient flooring penetrates at a higher level in those segments than in some of the other categories, just because of the end uses,” he says. “There are a lot of high-performance, active areas that need the advantages of a resilient floor.” Manufacturers have improved the finish levels of resilient flooring to reduce the amount of required maintenance.

For the renovation of the Medical Center of Plano, Texas, Perkins + Will’s Beighley specified LVT flooring because “it holds up well in the healthcare environment,” she says. “It’s a no-wax floor, so it’s easy to maintain.”

But there is also potential for growth in nontraditional floor coverings such as quartz tile. The Miraton line from Hanwha Surfaces was recently installed in the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport terminals because of its durability and numerous color options, says Lisa Herreth, product designer and marketing specialist for Hanwha. Several color options in the Miraton line are made up of recycled components and are SCS-certified.

Herreth notes that floor tiles are finding new uses and are even moving up the walls. “Thinner floor tiles are being manufactured for application to walls and vertical surfaces, creating a cohesive, seamless design,” she says. BD+C