Wardle Architects has partnered with Forbo Flooring on all of their education building projects for over 25 years. For Wardle’s latest project at Curtin University’s School of Design and the Built Environment, Forbo’s Marmoleum flooring was chosen as a perfect complement to their palette of materials, which included native timber and concrete.
Jeff, senior interior designer at Wardle Architects, comments:
The Marmoleum flooring has provided an elegant foreground to our preferred palette of native timbers, in situ and precast concrete, open ceilings, and acoustic linings. We love its grey saturation, its low-sheen surface, and the way it can flow from floors, to stairs, and onto walls.
For the Curtin School of Design and the Built Environment we selected Vivace ‘Cork Tree’ for its grey-brown mineral tones. The Cork Tree is used monolithically on a large central corridor and staircase, and a grand terraced breakout space at the base of the southern void.
In combination with a dynamic slotted blackbutt timber veneer ceiling, the floor frames vertical fields of colour – shimmering oxide red cable balustrades, anthracite-coloured acoustic panelling and Forbo ‘Lettuce Green’ bulletin board.
Teaching studios with large pivoting entry doors are lined with Marmoleum Slate ‘Lakeland Shale’ flooring, this time with grey-green-ochre saturated mineral tones. The textured linoleum surface of the shale provides a subtle counterpoint to the more traditional Marmoleum patternation.
An art installation by Janet Laurence floats Western Australian mineral samples across the full height of a majestic concrete void wall, pulling it all together.
As well as the impressive Green Star credentials of the linoleum, we really like the way beautiful colours and organic patterns play on the eye, whether that is up close or far away, looking down into the various void spaces from above. Each Forbo colourway is a work of art, making our job a real pleasure!
“Wardle Architects are proud to have worked closely with Forbo on all our education buildings over a 25-year period.”
Project details
Project: School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University
Architect: Wardle (formerly John Wardle Architects)
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Photographer: Dion Robeson
Forbo Products:
- Marmoleum Marbled Cork Tree
- Marmoleum Slate Lakeland Shale
- Bulletin Board Nutmeg Spice
- Bulletin Board Cinnamon Bark
- Bulletin Board Baby Lettuce
- Bulletin Board Blue Berry
