Interface Brings Nature to Urban Spaces with New Global Collection
First carpet tile that improves productivity
Leading carpet tile manufacturer Interface has launched its first collection of carpet tiles to be produced and available globally. At the cutting edge of design, Urban Retreat is inspired by people’s instinctive love of nature, a science known as ‘Biophilia’. The collection comes in three distinctive designs and is an elegant solution for built environments wishing to create a connection with the outside, inside.
Interface worked with world-renowned designer David Oakey, who specialises in nature inspired design, to create Urban Retreat. David was influenced by his travels around the world, where he has increasingly seen references to nature within architecture, design, products, landscape and art.
In the compact living spaces of modern cities, people are searching for a link to the natural world, and Biophilic design is now inspiring domestic and commercial environments around the world. Designers are helping by bringing nature indoors, and Urban Retreat reflects this growing trend.
Reflecting the core elements of Biophilic design, colour palettes within the Urban Retreat collection are evocative of heritage stones, forests, and savannah grasses. The tiles include patterns with soft edges, reminiscent of Lichen on a stone wall or moss in the elbow of a branch. The collection’s distinctive woven look was created with Interface’s innovative computer driven Tapestry machine, the first of its kind in Europe.
Nigel Stansfield, Senior Vice President for Product and Innovation at Interface in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India says, “For a long time now and as part of our on-going mission to have a positive impact on our environment, Interface has looked to the natural world for inspiration when designing our products. This is the inspiration behind Urban Retreat; by reflecting the living world around us in its design, materials and method of manufacture, the collection brings a little of the outdoors, indoors, helping satisfy our fundamental desire to tune into nature.”
Urban Retreat includes a variety of hardwearing carpet tiles, able to withstand heavy traffic for lasting performance. The collection is available in three distinct styles, with a range of commercial colours for each product. The tiles can be mixed and matched and installed in a variety of methods to create a unique and calming interior.
Urban Retreat One Available in three patterns, Urban Retreat One combines sharp and blurred, classic and futurist, eclectic and austere patterns. This range comes in eight colourways in a complex primary pattern and eight boldly mixed colours in a transitional pattern. They share four accent tiles that link and separate each pattern to let imaginations run wild.
Urban Retreat Two Urban Retreat Two includes three distinctive patterns that reflect the orderly and the organic in a restrained palette. The tiles have a simple grid and understated cord pattern mixed with an eccentric texture like the bark of an ancient tree. Mixing these patterns accentuates differences in scale, volume and movement. The range has a neutral palette of eight colour ways.
Urban Retreat Three Urban Retreat Three evokes elegance with a shimmering linen-like finish that’s inspired by shifting shades with fine fissures. The three patterns in Urban Retreat Three share the same eight hues found in Urban Retreat Two, and both pair quite elegantly with Urban Retreat One.
