Interface, the world’s leading modular flooring producer, and global leader in sustainability, has unveiled its latest carpet tile collection, NY+LON Streets, inspired by two of the world’s most iconic cities, New York and London, coupled with nylon, the carpet tile range’s core material.

Interface products has for many years been supplied and installed in South Africa by KBAC Flooring and have been specified for dozens of high-profile structures throughout Southern Africa. 

The NY+LON Streets collection features Interface’s new CQuest Bio backing, an innovative non-vinyl, non-bitumen carpet tile backing containing net carbon negative materials, that forms part of the Interface Carbon Neutral Floors programme.

The new NY+LON Streets collection was developed by David Oakey, founder of David Oakey Designs, and globally-respected product designer who has collaborated with Interface for many years.  Oakey says the inspiration for the new collection came to him in a street in London where he noticed the anti-slip surface of the sidewalk. “I felt that the diversity and randomness of the repeating squares in the pattern lend themselves well to flooring design – especially carpet tiles – and this concept became the basis of the new collection. The design focus then shifted to New York City with its beautiful, iridescent colours in glass vault lights, as well as the distressed metal plates peppered throughout the city’s streets and sidewalks,” Oakey explains.

The playful carpet collection uses fresh textures and patterns to encourage a new perspective on urban exploration. NY+LON Streets’ Wheler Street, Old Street, Dover Street and Reade Street designs interpret familiar urban textures, such as asphalt, worn metal, and distressed pavement, in a variety of scales, while the Mercer Street version embraces an unconventional grid pattern that Broome Street punches up with contemporary colour.

In creating the collection, Oakey was inspired by the trend of “old becoming new again”, a design approach in which repurposed buildings showcase rustic aesthetics juxtaposed with contemporary elements. This approach has a lower carbon impact than new construction projects and ideally complements Interface’s passion for sustainability.

NY+LON Streets, as part of Interface’s comprehensive flooring system, allows designers and other specifiers to combine the new collection’s 50cm x 50cm carpet tiles with Interface luxury vinyl tiles (LVTs) and Nora rubber flooring to achieve striking, integrated flooring.