Fabromont's environmental revolution starts from the floor up

I don't mind admitting it, as a design journalist, I'm a real fan of Instagram. Many companies today, of course, use this channel to present themselves – along with other social media platforms – allowing users to find out about news and respective product portfolios quickly and easily, picture by picture.

Swiss flooring manufacturer Fabromont, for example, is very active on Instagram and it's fun to look around its channel. Under fabromont_official, there is not only a gallery with case studies but substantive editorial content as well as this concise summation of the brand: 'Fabromont – manufacturer of textile floor coverings of the Kugelgarn® and Kugelvlies® brands. Long-lasting products of the highest quality, manufactured exclusively in Switzerland.'

The trademarked names Kugelgarn® and Kugelvlies® already provide a hint as to the high-quality and genuine originality offered by Fabromont – these are no cheap, mass-produced goods, but rather flooring solutions that provide architects and interior designers with new, individualised, aesthetic possibilities for floor design.

With this topic becoming ever more important, I asked Dr. Wolfgang Tesch, managing director of Fabromont, about the ecological dimension of Kugelgarn® (spherical yarn): ‘This is of great importance to us. We have been dealing with the topic of ecology since the 90s. We were a founding member of Ö.B.U., the association for sustainable business, and have registered several patents related to plastic recycling. It is important to us that there is no liquid waste and as little solid waste as possible.’

He continues, ‘We make sure not to use any substances that are toxicologically or ecologically questionable. We switched our binder to low-emission styrene acrylate years ago and we also recover large parts of the process heat.’ The robustness and long durability of spherical yarn make decisive contributions to sustainability.

The name Kugelgarn® itself refers to yarns woven in such a way that they form three-dimensional shapes, creating high levels of strength and at the same, a sound-absorbing effect. These features make walking on it particularly comfortable and adapting to different interior styles is also made easy by Fabromont's broad range.

The same applies to the furnishing of not only private homes but also offices, hotels, schools and libraries. Interior designers can create different atmospheres in these spaces via floor design. Rooms can be lent a particular homeliness with mottled yarns, for example, which also respond to the lighting situation or existing furnishings. Fabromont is well placed for supporting contemporary trends that relate to increased expectations of cosiness and individuality in office spaces.

‘Today's generation is looking for a better work-life balance. More and more employers are trying to accommodate this with more ergonomic and homely office equipment. There is no doubt that there is a competition for talent in the labour market that needs to be won. Our products are very useful in places where concentration, creativity and communication are important,’ Tesch confirms.

On Fabromont website's, specifiers can delve deeper into the properties of Kugelgarn® and Kugelvlies®, and find out more about their different features, installation options and the individual colour combinations that are possible, and the 'References' section is especially recommended for architects.

Fabromont's Kugelgarn® flooring material has been used on projects such as Swatch's headquarters in Biel, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main and the KIT in Karlsruhe, each of them modern, highly individual locations with high footfall levels generated by both employees and visitors, so naturally requiring durable, reliable and high-quality flooring.

But how does the Schmitten-based company actually develop the designs for its Kugelgarn® collections? Tesch explains: ‘Our designs have the special feature that they cannot be described mathematically – unlike geometrical patterns. They are strongly random, and better compared with things like falling leaves or flowers in a meadow.’

An engaging project that shows how creative Fabromont is in developing colour tones is its 'Impression' collection. Here, the artist Hugo Brülhart worked out new colour patterns based on a landscape series by the well-known nature photographer Michel Roggo. These were then translated into surfaces for Kugelgarn® floor coverings by the in-house designers.

So, as you can see, Fabromont not only follows its own path when it comes to development and production, but also in relation to the aesthetic of its products. A multitude of individualised solutions is offered in collaboration with designers and for designers – because people are the focus here.

© Architonic