WASHINGTON – Creating a sustainable product might be standard practice these days, but producing a sustainable product that is also innovative and unique will set you apart in the design community. The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and Interiors & Sources magazine recently partnered to award the products that best demonstrate a successful marriage of innovation and sustainability at the second annual 2010 Bloom Awards.
The contest was divided into five categories: flooring, casegoods furniture, occasional furniture, innovative materials, and textiles/wall coverings. The winners in each category are:
- Flooring: Tandus’ Powerbond ethos Cushion for Landscape Patterns—made of 100 percent recyclable, closed-loop Antron face fiber.
- Casegoods Furniture: Gunlocke’s Silea desk system—a contemporary office system designed to utilize the Design for the Environment (DfE) program, ensuring the product’s reusability.
- Occasional Furniture: Southern Aluminum’s XCube—a folding table made from lightweight, durable aluminum materials that never lose their original strength through repeated recycling.
- Innovative Materials: IceStone’s Refined Collection—a line of green, durable surfaces made from 100 percent recycled glass in a non-toxic cement base. Honorable mentions: ECO surface materials by Cosentino and The Smart Ceiling Tile by Ceilume.
- Textiles/Wall Coverings: tabrasa by IdeaPaint/MDC Wallcoverings—an environmentally friendly dry erase substitute that can turn virtually anything you can paint into a high-performance dry erase surface.
Winners were selected based on their effectiveness and innovation in sustainable commercial interior design. They were judged on the following criteria:
- The extent to which the product is environmentally innovative and aesthetically- pleasing;
- How the product promotes sustainability, including, but not limited to, energy savings, recycled content, recyclability, Life Cycle Assessments, and end-of-life management;
- Materials selection within the manufacturing process (such as substitution of hazardous and toxic chemicals for those that are less harmful);
- Resource efficiency within the manufacturing process (particularly water and energy use); and
- Recycling and waste management within the manufacturing process.
The Bloom Award winners will be featured in the May 2010 issue of Interiors & Sources, as well as mentioned in the May/June issue of ASID’s ICON magazine. The winners will also be recognized at ASID’s annual conference, ASID at NeoCon, held during NeoCon World’s Trade Fair in Chicago, June 14–16.
The 2010 Bloom Awards were presided over by a judging panel that consisted of:
- Kirsten Childs, ASID, LEED AP
- Kirsten Ritchie, PE, LEED AP, principal and director of sustainable design for Gensler
- Rachelle Schoessler Lynn, ASID, CID, LEED AP BD+C, partner at Studio 2030 Inc
About Interiors & Sources
Interiors & Sources is a publication with an exclusive focus on commercial interior designers who have the decision-making power to recommend and purchase products and services utilized in commercial structures. Each issue provides commercial interior designers with timely, provocative news as well as behind-the-scenes research that impacts the business of commercial design. For more information, visit www.interiorsandsources.com.
About ASID
The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) is a community of people—designers, industry representatives, educators and students—committed to interior design. Through education, knowledge sharing, advocacy, community building and outreach, the Society strives to advance the interior design profession and, in the process, to demonstrate and celebrate the power of design to positively change people’s lives. Its more than 36,000 members engage in a variety of professional programs and activities through a network of 48 Chapters throughout the United States and Canada. Visit www.asid.org to learn more.