Tandus Flooring recently named Robert Holm, sr. professional associate at HDR, Omaha, and Lauren Shaw, a Virginia Tech School of Architecture graduate student, the winners of its Powerbond Inlay Design Competition. The contest urged professional and student designers to create a design using Powerbond’s unique inlay capabilities. Powerbond, a hybrid resilient sheet flooring, fuses resilient closed cell cushion with a nylon wear layer.

Holm won the 2010 Tandus Flooring national juried Powerbond Inlay Design Competition with an inlay design for Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, Omaha. Shaw received the student award with her concept for the Staunton Community Design Center, Staunton, Va.  

Holm’s inlay design for the Specialty Pediatric Center at the regional referral children’s hospital in Omaha relies heavily on Powerbond flooring for theme creation and wayfinding. Flooring inlays increase in sophistication from childlike artwork of fish and leaves to educational weather displays, reflecting the developmental growth of patients from birth to teenagers. Flowing ribbons of color lead patients to their destination. Exam room pods are identified with a floor icon such as an acorn or snowflake that is repeated in wall graphics and children’s art.     

“The HDR design team and Children’s clients are so pleased with Powerbond that no other floorcovering is considered,” Holm said.

For the winning student entry, Shaw created a dandelion-inspired flooring inlay that is mirrored in the stretched architectural fabric of the ceiling. The flooring focal point mimics the “triangular tessellation” created by the dandelion as it loses petals and seeds emerge. Shaw created the flooring concept for a vacant warehouse in Staunton that she envisioned as a Community Design Center offering pro bono services for urban redevelopment. The floor’s color palette of Plexus Colours II key lime, taupe and coffee bean echoes the panoramic nature scenes viewed through the warehouse’s many windows.   

“Powerbond becomes the focal point of the Staunton Community Design Center by adding another level of richness to the space,” Shaw said.

Winners were awarded $2,000 in the professional category and $1,000 in the student category, and will be showcased in various communications mediums throughout the year.

“The designs submitted in this competition showcased Powerbond’s unique capabilities in all environments which is exactly what we were looking for,” said Tom Ellis, Tandus Flooring's vp marketing.

Entries for the 2011 competition will be due in December 2011.