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Watch Your Step pix

Eva Hagberg -- Interior Design, 3/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

The New York showroom carries Syncopation carpet tiles, 7 ¾ inches square and made from Struttura solution-dyed nylon yarn.

Carpet samples line the marble top of a display table.

These samples are from the Sole Mates line.

Carpet tile in the Footnotes line stands out against the epoxy floor just inside the entry.

Framed sample bags hang in one of the two conference rooms.

This line is called Level.

An ever changing assemblage of samples anchors a reception area furnished with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Brno chairs and Kazuhide Takahama's Suzanne sofa.
FLOOR COVERING: INTERFACE. CEILING SYSTEM: TECTUM (ACOUSTIC PANELS); HUNTER DOUGLAS (SUSPENDED PANELS); ARMSTRONG (SMALL PANELS). PENDANT FIXTURES: TANGO LIGHTING. FLUORESCENT FIXTURES: MARK LIGHTING. TRACK LIGHTING: LIGHTOLIER. FLOORING: ARDEX. BASE MATERIAL: JOHNSONITE. TABLE STONE: STONESOURCE. DOOR HARDWARE: FSB. CHAIRS, TABLES, SOFA, WORKSTATIONS: KNOLL. PAINT: BENJAMIN MOORE CO. MEP: SIMON RODKIN, CONSULTING ENGINEER. EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT: TRUISI DESIGN GROUP. PROJECT MANAGER: USI PROJECT MANAGEMENT. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: JAMES G. KENNEDY CO.

Sometimes, the very best-designed space is one where the design disappears. The Interface showroom in New York hardly makes a splash compared to the modular floor coverings on display. And that's exactly the point—to give a neutral backdrop to decidedly un-neutral merchandise.
"We created a blank canvas because our product changes constantly," says Russ Ramage, the Interface creative director who steered the renovation. "This is not an opinionated space."

A pale taupe epoxy floor provides the backdrop for shifting samples of modular carpet tiles in natural and synthetic fibers: Eight to 15 arrangements are replaced or reconfigured as needed for clients and parties. (Or as dictated by whim.)

Salespeople, who once had private offices, now sit in cubicles on one side of the showroom. Meanwhile, the regional vice president Joyce LaValle, a driving force behind the redesign, occupies a central office enclosed entirely in glass. The 5,400-square-foot showroom is bookended by conference rooms, one equipped with a massive TV, the other decorated with framed sample bags, which the company gives out as viral-marketing hints of collections to come.