Telethon Kids Institute

Some lateral thinking by Tarkett Australia has entirely eliminated wastage of its DESSO® carpet tiles during the fit-out of a Western Australian children’s medical research facility – saving 30 percent on material costs and 50 percent on labour, compared with a previous proposal.

Designed by Woods Bagot and built by Multiplex, the Telethon Kids Institute’s new, larger home at the Perth Children’s Hospital features world-class equipment and facilities to assist research into causes and treatments for childhood illness. Woods Bagot workplace design leader, Stirling Fletcher, said the architects’ design vision for the Telethon Kids Institute (TKI) was inspired by different parts of the human body.

 “The design team compared spatial relationships of the facility to that of human biology systems,” said Mr Fletcher. “The flooring design was a key component of these spatial ideas, as the canvas upon which to create aesthetics aligned to the biological symbols and patterns” Mr Fletcher said. For the open-plan workspace that encourage staff collaboration, a repetitive three-dimensional flooring pattern was chosen to mimic the process of cellular growth through duplication and division.

Multiplex and its contracted Perth-based commercial flooring specialist, Floorwise, were tasked with turning its design into reality. Floorwise director, Peter Vodicka, said that upon examination of the proposed carpet tile specifications he noticed it was not a suitable choice for meeting the architect’s design intent, budget and build program. “A 500mm x 500mm tile was initially specified,” said Mr Vodicka. “The issue was that in order to achieve the intended visual effect and make it convincingly 3D, only a diamond shape would work. “With the existing spec’s you’d have needed two standard tiles to make one diamond. You’d have to cut them and there would be a huge amount of wastage. Basically, you’d be looking at a huge amount of manual cutting on site, which would slow the installation down and cost a hell of a lot in labour.” With a fixed budget and a tight timeline there was no way to proceed as initially planned. “At that point they were either going to have to pay a lot more to complete the design or do something less complex,” Mr Vodicka said.

Fortunately, as the only all-inclusive commercial flooring company in Australia, Floorwise is highly experienced with design and construction projects and used to inventing solutions for situations particular to a project’s needs. It turned to Tarkett business development manager, Hazel Derrett, with an unorthodox idea to secure a diamond result from a rough situation.

Over 5000 DESSO® Fields textured carpet tiles were specified, as well as DESSO® Tweed B529. DESSO® Fields tiles – which, with its enlarged and irregular loops, give the impression of being handwoven – cover approximately 5000m2 of TKI’s flooring. Nearly 2000m2 of Tarkett Safetred heterogeneous vinyl sheets with enhanced slip resistance were specified for heavy-traffic areas within TKI such as corridors and laboratories.