The Total South Africa head office building in Rosebank recently contracted leading environmental floor supplier, Kevin Bates Albert Carpets (KBAC) to supply and install all the flooring for the extensive green refurbishment. The major project is aimed at improving the international oil company’s environmental footprint.

As part of Total SA’s aim to achieve a Level  4 Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa for the refurbished building, just under 7 500 square metres of sustainable Interface flooring was specified for the  refurbishment project by Paragon Interiors. Exclusively imported from Europe and distributed in South Africa by KBAC, Interface represents an environmental technological breakthrough in modular flooring, and has reached major sustainability production milestones since it embarked  on “Mission Zero” in 1996 – an initiative to become the world’s first sustainable, restorative carpet manufacturer by the year 2020.

Project outline

Lesley Fidrmuc, Interface consultant for KBAC, says 6 950 square metres of the Interface Monochrome carpet tile range, and 500 square metres of Interface’s Urban Retreat carpet tiles, were specified by Paragon Interiors, and subsequently installed by KBAC in the Total SA building in Biermann Avenue.

“Interface Monochrome range comprises 500mm by 500mm highly textured loop pile tiles, made from 100% recycled fibre. The range is available in 48 colours so designers can use it for seamless wall-to-wall flooring or use different coloured tiles from the range to create zones or special patterns. Using Monochrome, designers can identify difference spaces and working areas without having to rely on partition walls,” Fidrmuc explained. “The exceptionally wide array of colours also simplifies matching the flooring to other interior products and furnishings.”

Carpets inspired by nature

Interface’s Urban Retreat is part of the company’s ongoing Biophilic ranges, the brainchild of internationally-renowned designer, David Oakey, pioneer of flooring bio-mimicry. Oakey found inspiration in the visual, tactile features of forest floors, grassy fields and pebbled garden paths in creating the Urban Retreat range that was so widely employed by Paragon Interiors to bring nature indoors for the 550 staff members based at the Total SA head office.

“Urban Retreat is a tufted, patterned loop carpet tile, produced from 100% recycled yarn with a high proportion of recycled content in its backing. The ranges installed in the Total offices are produced on a special computer-driven Interface tapestry machine, which produces a very heavily textured finish with high and low loops.

“The Interface flooring supplied by KBAC Flooring for the refurbishment project, replaced Interface carpet tiles installed in the Total head offices by KBAC about a decade ago,” Lesley added.

Flooring it towards the green stars

Lisa Young, account manager at Paragon Interiors, who specified the flooring for Total House, says with the Level 4 Green Star GBCSA rating in mind, Paragon Interiors had no hesitation in selecting Interface flooring because of the company’s prioritised focus on sustainability. “However, the focus on sustainability was a constant thread throughout the installation and not only relative to the Green Star requirement. The quest for sustainability is also pertinent to Total’s brand drive regarding environmental preservation,” Young commented.

Werner Gouws, KBAC’s senior contracts manager, who was in charge of the installation, said the adhesive used for the Interface flooring had a zero total volatile organic compound (VOC) content. “Installation posed no major challenges and was divided into phases, with separate scheduling for the ground, first and second floors  of the building. Thanks to excellent logistical control by the main contractor, JC van der Linde & Venter Projects, the KBAC team simply had to focus on achieving top quality installation,” Werner recalled.