Red-carpet treatment: OBJECT CARPET x Ippolito Fleitz Group

Furniture is often said to have a decisive influence on the atmosphere of a room. This is certainly not completely wrong. But when you think about it, tables, chairs and sofas are relatively small objects – compared with textile floor coverings, which give style to larger areas.

Architects and interior designers know how strongly the colour and materiality of carpets, for example, influence the appearance of rooms. Therefore, when furnishing a room, it is important to think of it from the floor up – because it forms the basis for all further design decisions.

Current office design trends are more and more determined by ‘soft’ aspects such as individuality, emotionality and cosiness. We simply spend a lot more time in offices, and therefore, no longer want to do without a certain homely warmth.

Particularly in contemporary architecture, with its extensive use of glass and concrete, carpets can create an exciting contrast as well as significantly improving acoustics, especially in larger rooms. This is because they significantly dampen the general noise levels and thus have a very positive effect on the working atmosphere in offices.

What is true for offices is, of course, also today true for living rooms, retail spaces, hotels and restaurants – if not even more so. For this reason, Denkendorf company OBJECT CARPET, has set itself the target of offering the right solutions for all the above-mentioned spaces with a wide range of innovative carpet products.

Founded by Roland Butz in 1972, the company is still family-run today and can boast almost 50 years of experience in carpet production – Made in Germany – and individualised support on interior projects.

For one of their new carpet collections, OBJECT CARPET has entered into a collaboration with the Ippolito Fleitz Group, which now, after three years in development, has led to unconventional, expressive results. The renowned interior design studio is one of the global players in its field.

The new collection, named ‘OBJECT CARPET x Ippolito Fleitz Group’, has a number of special features: On the one hand, there is its collection concept: All eight new carpet types – with a total of 111 colours – can be combined with each other, offering architects and interior designers great freedom to create exciting dialogues between colours and structures.

All variants of the collection are available as wall-to-wall carpets and fitted carpets (RUGX), and many of them also as self-laying acoustic tiles. At the very beginning of the design process, a wild mood board was created, that is, a kind of material and colour collage, use to try to approximate the ‘look & feel’ of the new collection.

Why wild? Well, you rarely get really creative and innovative results unless you have the courage to freely associate. In addition to dyed sheepskin, nail polish samples, a net shopping bag, a colour example of the famous Yves Klein blue, you can also find a glazed tile, raw silk and even a tuft of hair by designer Tilla Goldberg on the mood board.

In this way, the basic principle of the collection crystallised, with variations of differing intensities, each forming a melange of subtle shades and combinations of colours.

And, not unimportant, especially in today's world where environmental issues play an increasingly important role: The collection is free of PVC, bitumen and latex. All carpets are washed – and therefore free of harmful substances and emissions.

Furthermore, OBJECT CARPET minimises the environmental impact in production by using regenerated ECONYL® nylons from AQUAFIL. This special fibre consists of one hundred per cent recycled nylon waste.

Names such as ‘SKILL x CHILL’ or ‘MOVE x GROOVE’ characterise the mood and atmosphere of a particular look, and the sometimes subtle, sometimes bold colour variations play a decisive role.

Some examples from the collection appear three-dimensional and soft, others solid and clearly structured – and yet radiate liveliness and warmth. Here, the carpet becomes a stage for living and working – and can either underline an existing architectural atmosphere or form a surprising counterpart to it.

Tilla Goldberg, Product Design Director and member of the Ippolito Fleitz Group management board, emphasises how important it is today not to think in terms of individual products alone, but to design the entire atmosphere of a room: ‘For companies, it is increasingly a question of transforming to agile working. Broken down to the design of new working worlds, it is about creating atmospheres that support well-being or create zones that are inviting to teams and lead to inspired meetings. A carpet, here, literally lays the foundation for a room.’

This collaboration then is, ironically, less about ‘keeping one’s feet on the ground’, but rather about being the springboard for wider creative visions. Daniel Butz, Managing Director of OBJECT CARPET, sums it up so: ‘We have created a collection that is particularly suited to the projects of our customers – and was our understanding of this cooperation right from the beginning.’

© Architonic