Meeting the differing flooring requirements of commercial clients
The Strategy at Rawson Carpet Solutions is to fulfill the differing and often specific demands for floor covering in the many commercial areas that a carpet tile is required to ensure success for each client.
Design
It is commonly stated that the cost of a flooring package sometimes can be 5% of the construction cost, but contributes 40% to the overall finished aesthetic. Therefore, the design influence of the carpet flooring solution for a school or office carpet tile is an important factor. Rawson’s strategy is met by releasing new designs to market to satisfy the architects requirement to make a statement and reveal an impactful high-end education or workplace flooring solution. ‘Jazz’ in its many forms, ‘Signal’, with its linear design, ‘Riven’ with its nature-inspired aesthetic, or Rawson’s newest carpet tile, ‘Earth Creation’, inspired by naturally-derived surfaces, offer the designer considerable design freedom.
The two most design influenced offerings from Rawson are ‘Riven’ and ‘Earth Creation’. Riven is a natural, aesthetic-inspired, structured carpet tile or plank. The design is flowing and contributes greatly to biophilic design. The carpet plank or tile with matching yarns in the colours allows for many carpet design and carpet layout options to provide a truly unique finished carpet floor design.
New ‘Earth Creation’ is a carpet tile solution which is structured and uses a good weight of Nylon yarn. The result is a luxurious designer carpet tile with a new, unique non-directional aesthetic. The inspiration for the range came from earth’s creating materials, the dust and meteors colliding over time to formulate the earth, which are still found on our shores today, offer some enlightening natural finishes and textures. The symbolism with such a naturally derived material provided the jumping off point for a colour scheme which is fresh and can complement a work or education space to great effect. Rawson’s creative team is still designing, two more design options release to market in 2023.
Design impact is sometimes the main brief and in this instance our team is always keen to come and sit with your clients to go through the many design options, to discuss how carpet tiles can work together and be laid together to provide endless design opportunities. We provide a design service to offer confidence in the design and the finished aesthetic. To see the actual space and assist with the creation of designated space, transfer of colour or simple way finding techniques.
Wayfinding and space allocating in open plan areas are more and more popular in light of the move towards open space working and learning. For wayfinding, Rawson has a lot to offer, from simple directional tile offerings, to a full inlay design service to make a truly inspired carpet design. The suitability of differing colours blended across an open space is only really working when ranges are designed with this in mind. In line with Rawson’s strategy, each product colour in Earth Creation, Riven, or Signal, utilises familiar yarns with at least three swatches, which in turn supports the creation of a sample board and colour pallet as a jumping off point to begin the floor design, knowing that the cross over between colours will work. Delineations of space and activity can be easily defined by the change in floor design to certain areas. Or, use of a complementing brighter colour in the space to show foot traffic locations and to highlight the open spaces.
Colour
The choice of carpet colours is very important. Colour choice can greatly impact the feel and comfort of a work or education space, and influence mood greatly. For the release of the latest range Earth Creation, Rawson spent considerable time with very respected designers, technologists and colour influencers to find the most inspiring and on-trend yarn colours to use in their new range. With burnt pastille reds giving a feeling of lava rock, and Jade, with its crystal evocative expression, also with subtle navy and pastille blues, the earth creation carpet tile colour range hopes to fulfil even the most specific of clients colour brief. The designer is given the choice of invading the space with colour and influence, or to bring colour into the floor design in specific areas of the building whilst using a forgiving and matching yarn tile for the breakout spaces and walkways.
With the biophilic ‘Riven’ carpet tile or plank range, colour choice is essential to maintain this space and floor design aspiration, so, it was important to bring in colour that emulates water, earth ,rock and grass. Here colour can greatly support the wellbeing feeling in the building whilst further complement the natural feel-good floor aesthetic. As a UK Manufacturer, Rawson is always keen to work with clients to satisfy the brief. If specific colours are needed for your new workspace carpet floor design or education facility floor, Rawson will look at producing a carpet tile solution that is matched to your requirements.
Comfort
Clients’ flooring requirements are broad. In some instances, maybe due to the nature of the building or the environment outside, the comfort provided in calm is a primary factor. Here, a high footfall sound absorption coefficient for the floorcovering is going to play a vital part in contributing to the quiet calm in the building. Rawson has many carpet tiles which offer a higher level of sound reduction than the norm. Indeed ‘Earth Creation’ and ‘Riven’ both offer LC1 classification (luxury class), which extends to the weight of yarn supplied and the subsequent sound reduction of up to 24dB. The same result is also achieved in Rawson’s fully recyclable carpet tile solutions ‘ Recover’ made of single polymer PET with a soft recycled backing. The option to go further with sound reduction extends to choosing ‘quietback’. Quietback is a factory applied needled fibre applied to the back of the bitumen tile backing. This can extend the sound reduction capabilities of the carpet tile to 27dB. The comfort can also be achieved in the form of wellbeing, and so choosing products from Rawson carpet solutions like ‘Riven’ where biophilic inspired colours contribute to a calming space where you have brought the outside in, proven to increase peoples’ emotional well-being and help with concentration and content.
Budget
In order to offer the broadest range of commercial carpet solutions there must be a broad range of price offerings. At Rawson Carpet Solutions the range of products extends from fibre-bonded carpet sheet and tile solutions to designer, structured solution-dyed nylon carpet tiles. The fibre-bonded range is renowned for durability. Durable carpet tiles are not necessarily an expensive component. The competitively-priced fibre-bonded carpet tiles such as ‘Eurocord’ offer exceptional durability and price competitiveness. Using a budget solution doesn’t mean that the floor has to look bland, the option to cut carpet tiles into 3rds and lay offset as shown in our ‘recover’ image below, or to provide a contrasting border can greatly support a great floor design aesthetic.
However, in the designer nylon ranges, the standard solution-dyed nylon offer ‘Jazz’ is one of the most competitively priced in the market place with an exceptionally-broad colour bank and complementing block or graduated linear designs at the same rate.
The commercial carpet sheet and tile solutions from Rawson extend to some structured designer tiles and planks with new carpet designs being released this year. However, adding some design to the floor need not be too expensive. The designer nylon ranges are competitive and all follow the strategy of having matching yarns running through the colour ranges and also matching yarns with the Jazz range. Therefore, a competitively priced product can be used alongside a structured two-ply nylon carpet tile to give that extra to the space but with a good average price achieved. Our team is always keen to discuss getting the best result for the budget.
Durability
Durability is a necessity when offering carpet solutions to the commercial market, whether a busy school carpet solution or a new workplace floor design, the foot traffic will be considerable and the floor – with its impact on the overall aesthetic – must complement the space for many years. Rawson designs and supplies coverings with durability in mind, not only to provide clients with confidence in their choices going forward but also as a responsible environmental consideration. All carpet solutions from Rawson come with a minimum 10-year warranty and good cleanability. The longevity of the interior finish can be further supported by the correct choice of suitable entrance matting. This can provide a cleaning and drying service to the foot traffic entering the building, lowering the incidence of stacked soil and moisture from the outside being imposed upon the interior carpet solution. Rawson Carpet Solutions have been making entrance solutions for over 50 years, from simple primary entrance mat designs to intricate inlays.
Environmental and sustainable carpet solutions:
Environmental carpet solutions – more than ever – are at the forefront of designers criteria, and juggling the budget with the design aspiration can sometimes lower the opportunities for the true sustainability characteristics of some highly sustainable products to be chosen in the market place.
When designing our fully recyclable flooring solution called ‘Recover’, Rawson had these two characteristics in mind. Rawson Carpet Solutions works under the 14001 Environmental Management accreditation to ensure all aspects of environment are considered throughout the manufacturing process. The EPD’s showed a low impact carpet throughout the ranges, with exceptionally low readings achieved for Recover. This carbon impact, now quantified can now be assessed as we move to carbon neutral throughout our ranges, indeed the entire designer nylon range offered by Rawson is manufactured Carbon Neutral. The EPD’s are carried out by the BRE and so offer A+ BRE points too.
Differing Space Requirements:
Rawson Carpet Solutions specialise in the commercial flooring market and find their key sectors to be workplace and education spaces. However, great solutions are available for busy public spaces, retail, hospitality and also sports and play areas. Carpets for entire education & workspace buildings can have very differing requirements, from antistatic characteristics for server rooms, durable and visually impacting for entrance areas or a sinuous design that is comforting for higher-end meeting and conference rooms, throughfares and corridors. There may be the desire to emulate the company logo in the entrance foyer or even carry the school or business colours throughout the project. In this instance, Rawson is able to colour match almost anything, that is, in the unlikely situation, a colour from our vast range doesn’t suffice. The offering from Rawson ensures that, for all spaces of our potential projects, a favourable solution to meet clients’ criteria is available.
Specification
Rawson Carpet Solutions works with NBS source to offer NBS specifications to support our clients choice and documentation. We supply all extensive tech data on our website and we collaborate with barbour building product search as well. Many clients will wish to fulfil a certain performance brief, and here is where dealing with a UK Manufacturer enables the creation of a truly bespoke and suited product for a specific need if required.
It is rare that a solution cannot be achieved with the high level of testing for so many differing requirements such as antistatic, spike resistant, LC rating or fire resistance. Our team will happily steer our clients towards the most suited carpet solution for your needs.
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