Bjelin’s durable hardened wood flooring won the Best of NeoCon 2024, which recognizes ground-breaking ideas and innovative, sustainable design. That’s not all that the flooring brand, which is part of Swedish family-owned Pervanovo company group based in Viken, Sweden, unveiled at this year’s commercial design show. We caught up with Zach Adams, Bjelin general manager for North America, to learn more.

FLOOR Trends & Installation: You introduced the Contrast collection earlier this year. Tell us about it.

Zach Adams:What we've done here is interesting. Instead of just staining the top surface, we can also stain the wood powder that we use underneath to give a cerused wood look. We might take a lighter color on top and a white pigment underneath, or a white pigment with a darker stain on top. When you see it in a large layout, you can see how the color comes through to get that high-contrast look.

Floor Trends & Installation: What are architects and designers looking for in wood floors?

Adams: We're still seeing a lot of the character on the residential side. They're looking for the natural look. The rustic look is moving away commercially. They like the cleaner looks, but they still love to see the natural look of wood, which our product gives, and a range of mid-tones and lighter natural tones. We're seeing a move towards the natural tones. The darker and the lighter gray has become something of the past, particularly the heavy saturated gray.

Floor Trends & Installation: You won Best of NeoCon award for the Woodura range. How is this hardened wood technology taking off in the market?

Adams: Whenever you come out with a feature benefit product, it takes a little longer for people to pick up on what you're bringing to the table. The momentum that we're picking up now is creating real buzz within the industry. Residentially, we rolled that out three or four years ago. Now, on the commercial side, which we just rolled out last year, we're starting to see the benefit. We partnered with Spartan Surfaces this year. We’ve created a product that takes a lot of discussion points, and the Spartan team will help us communicate the features and benefits to the market. 

Floor Trends & Installation: So you’re expanding your commercial business. Tell us more about your growth plans.

Adams: The builder side may be our next frontier—it's a great play for our product type. We’ll start to focus on that for 2025. We’ve seen strength in hospitality. Multifamily has been a big thing for us because it fits in that space where they need something that's budget-friendly, and they need something that performs, but they are also trying to sell an upscale look.

Floor Trends & Installation: Tell us about the herringbone pattern launch.

Adams: Our herringbone floors click together without any labor-intensive steps such as glueing or nailing. Herringbone is more prevalent in Europe than in the U.S., but we've launched our current herringbone products domestically and we plan to move into the oversized herringbone. What does that look like? Big. Designers in the commercial space would be the ones who will gravitate towards it, but it'll work with all of our clients who like oversized products.