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Diafos

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Abet Laminati -- Interior Design, 12/25/2006 12:00:00 AM

Abet Laminati's new showroom is 4,500 square feet of color and texture, starting with the entry's 10-foot-high checkerboard wall. Visually entertaining, it's also pure marketing, showing off the fact that this company offers more colors and patterns—408, to be exact—than any other supplier of plastic laminates in North America. (The wall displays 160 examples, from lime green to rust red.) The showroom as a whole also functions as a real-life demonstration lab for two recently launched products.

Diafos gives designers the option of using laminate for lighting: Because the material is translucent, it can harness a light source to add color to an environment. A pendant fixture and panels in Abet's conference room reveal how the product also curves. That's thanks to thermoset resin, which bends without heat or special equipment and eliminates the brittle phenolic usually seen on laminate. Standard sheet size is 4 by 10 feet.

The other new product put to work in the showroom is sustainable Tefor, a nonporous high-impact laminate made from recycled phenolic dust and polypropylene. On display on a showroom wall, Tefor also comes in 4-by-10-foot sheets, available in seven colors. 60 West Sheffield Avenue, Englewood, NJ 07631; 800-228-2238; abetlaminati.com.