Architect/Designer

October 24, 2017

What is Sound and Why Does it Matter?

Sound – especially sound in the spaces where we work – affects us far more than you might think. When it comes to designing interior spaces, acoustic considerations are often put aside or completely ignored in favor of purely visual aesthetics. However, condemning office workers, hospital staff, students and teachers, guests in hotels and even…

October 19, 2017

New California Legislation Moves Us Closer to a Circular Economy

Governor Brown of California recently signed into law an important piece of legislation that will take us a step closer to the realization of a circular economy in the State of California. The Governor signed into law AB 1158, enhancing California’s carpet recycling program. At Interface, we see this new law as a positive step forward…

October 13, 2017

Sustainability for Beginners: Lessons Learned from 2017’s Living Product Expo

There’s no better way to learn a new subject than to immerse yourself in it completely, right? And if you’re on your second week of the job, it makes sense for your employer to just throw you in headfirst. Before I started at Interface, I thought I knew some things about climate change and sustainability.…

October 12, 2017

West Elm is Where Employees Feel at Home

Offering stylish furnishings from globally responsible sources, West Elm grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Their commitment to community initiatives, dedication to personal retail service, and desire to connect global artisan markets to their customers made them a magnet for attracting the millennial shopper. When their business took…

October 10, 2017

Creating Biophilic Buildings

What if we could experience the same physical, psychological, and emotional benefits moving through an urban landscape that we experienced walking through a forest? What if we could right our relationship with nature by transforming the built environment in a way that buildings functioned in harmony with the natural world? This opportunity lies in the…

September 29, 2017

The True Cost of Noise

Dead silence can be an intimidating working environment. Some sound in any workplace is generally desirable: pleasing background sounds like the gentle, indecipherable babble of colleagues speaking, one’s own choice of music or perhaps the sounds of nature coming through an open window. However, much of the sound in typical workplaces is undesirable: ringing phones,…

September 26, 2017

Sustainable Plastics: Oxymoron or Responsible Approach?

A new vision for plastics: green chemistry, the circular economy, and a climate fit for life. When reviewing recent news about plastic waste filling the oceans, toxic additives leaching from plastic products, and the impacts of fossil fueled global warming, making a plastic product – like Interface’s modular flooring – sustainable can begin to seem…

September 22, 2017

Using the BRE Biophilic Office Project to Study the Benefits of Biophilic Design

Biophilic Design as a key aspect of health and wellbeing is moving up the built environment agenda fast – and for good reason. With high rates of urbanisation, a rise in stress related illness and an increasing level of technological proliferation – it seems that we are moving ever further from the natural elements that…