Rubber Soul

Mark McMenamin and Rebecca Thienes -- Interior Design, 7/1/2012 2:00:00 AM

Everyone knows rubber as an eminently sustainable material with stress-resistance characteristics to boot. Now consider the aesthetic potential. Artigo has been doing just that for years. To make the point even clearer, however, the flooring expert collaborated with Sottsass Associati to show off rubber’s myriad possibilities.



Christopher Redfern, an industrial designer at the firm established by Ettore Sottsass, kept the concept lean and mean. “You could call it the culture of sparsity,” he says, adding that what links the three patterns is the repetition of “a small random event.”



In the case of Kayar tiles, that event would be the discreet dash marks punctuating the smooth face of these 24-inch squares, offered in 24 colors. With Zero.4 tiles, larger and smaller circles stud the 39 .-inch squares, in seven colors. As for Ebony planks, irregular fluting defines the 8-by-39. rectangles, in four colors. All versions can be treated with PRO or TXL, new protective finishes that reduce the need for water, detergent, and energy. 39-02-90786415; artigo.com. circle 410