Solon, Ohio—Tarkett has introduced Blockade and Soundblock, featuring bold geometric patterns created using innovative, custom technology. Designed by Jhane Barnes, this collection features two soft surface styles in Powerbondand modular platforms that offer ideal flooring solutions for office, education and hospitality spaces.
With mathematical formulas as her guide, Barnes has mastered the art of making structured patterns appear random and unpredictable. The Blockade formula was introduced years ago for a shirt in her menswear collection designed exclusively for Neiman Marcus. This recipe led her back to this playful geometric pattern and its seemingly random color placements for the Blockade collection.
Using a different branch of mathematics, Barnes created a second recipe, which resulted in Soundblock as a companion pattern. Even though the components of the Soundblock design are smaller, the overall visual effect appears to have a larger scale than Blockade, making it ideal for expansive, open spaces.
Barnes’ designs are created with the help of her own custom-programmable software filters. By defining an algorithm that determines color placement, and then shifting and rotating layers of the pattern on top of each other, she is able to manipulate the final aesthetic each time she adjusts the numbers.
“There is a randomness at work, which is why I can never get the same design twice,” Barnes said. “That’s what makes it so much fun. I can keep changing the factor numbers and get new designs every time. I created over a dozen patterns before I finally settled on the one that became Soundblock.”
Barnes has included 12 colors in the Blockade palette, with seven modern neutrals and five branding accents. Eight of those colors are repeated in the Soundblock palette, helping the two work easily together throughout a floorplan. Both Blockade and Soundblock are available in Powerbond as well as 9 x 36-inch, 18 x 36-inch and 24 x 24-inch tiles. When installed as Powerbond, Blockade requires no matching at the seams, for faster installation and minimal waste.
For more information, visit: tarkettna.com.