Setting the stage for what’s happening and what’s to come in hospitality design was HD Expo, held last week in Las Vegas. Floor Trends was on hand to take in all of the education, inspiration and innovation the show had to offer. With our sights set especially on flooring, we were happy to connect with players in the hospitality market to see their latest floor covering product introductions and technologies.

Karndean’s design team continues to travel the world, seeking inspiration for product designs that will help us see and experience flooring differently. Hitting the ground running this year, Karndean has updated four collections since January with a total of 45 new products that speak to both residential and commercial market trends.

An Expo standout, Karndean’s Looselay Longboard Fabric Oak range received an ASIID Design Impact Award at the show. “We looked at creating almost a fabric overlay look to it,” said Katherine Caringola, communications manager. “Because so many of our customers use this together with commercial carpet tiles, it’s 4.5 mm thick for easy transition. We looked at influences in fabric and textiles as well to see how we could incorporate them because they are so commonly used together.”

Behind the scenes, Karndean is also specifying flooring differently with its QuietChoice acoustic underlayment. For use under Karndean gluedown, loose lay and rigid core products, QuietChoice’s acoustic benefits are quieting the sound of furniture and foot traffic and making hospitality spaces sound as relaxing as they look.

Take a deep dive into design with Encore’s fREEForm collection. Inspired by ocean life, fREEForm transformed Ecore’s Expo space into an aquatic wonderland. Showcasing the collection’s most vibrant offerings, fREEForm’s designs reference the natural beauty of the life beneath the waves and encourage ocean life in designs and nature itself. For each design specified from the Collection, Encore will donate a portion of sales to The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), which works with communities to save coral reefs across the globe. “If any designer specifies a design from the collection—there’s over 40 designs; they can recolor it, they can change the size, the scale, anything—25 cents per yard will be donated for public areas and 10 cents for guest rooms, ongoing,” said Lisa Herreth, creative director.

Spirit Moderne’s was the focal point of Durkan’s Expo space, drawing the design community’s attention with its engaging showcase. In this second installment of Durkan’s collaboration with the Museum of International Folk Art, Spirit Moderne has drawn inspiration from scrap culture and revived and infused it with a contemporary aesthetic.

“This year we chose to go with the Folk Art side because we send a couple designers to Milan Design Week every year, and the big theme at Milan Design Week last year was scrap culture,” Elizabeth said Bonner, creative design director. “Textural waste is the largest offender in landfills and with fast fashion, people are buying things, wearing them a couple times, donating them and then donation centers are so overwhelmed, they end up shipping those things off to landfills instead of them actually getting used. So we were trying to be cognizant of the role we play in that. We felt like the Folk Art side was a fun side to draw inspiration from because they are traditionally scrap artists, they work with a lot of found objects.”

Eliminating the typical white base, Durkan integrated pattern, color and texture into Spirt Moderne using Synthesis carpet design technology. As a result, 50% of the yarns in the base were replaced with scrap yarns leftover from other projects, which added stunning linear elements of color to the design.

Patterns created with feeling and passion, that’s what designer Virginia Langley has created in the Andanté collection. “If you’re playing music and they tell you to play with feeling, the Italian version is to play Andanté; with soul and with feeling,” Langley said. “I think that really translates well to art and design. If you add feeling and passion into your work, I believe it reflects, just like it does in music.”

Never straying far from her love of nature, Langley has paired botanical effects with feeling and passion, to create a collection of broadloom and carpet tile that is soft and flowing.

“One of the things that’s great about Emser is that we are about the customer and how do we get to ‘yes’,” said Mara Heras, vice president of marketing. Taking designer’s visions and bringing them to life, with Emser’s broad and customizable product range of stone and tile, anything is possible. “For [the hospitality] audience that’s key,” said Heras. “Often hotels want a unique product that is their look, and with the quantities they do, we can make that happen.”

A customer favorite, Emser’s award-winning Rhapsody juxtaposes a distressed finish with modern design flexibility. White and black simplistic, modern diagonal and organic inspired floral patterns enable a wide array of design possibilities. “This has just been so hot,” said Heras. “It’s kind of a patina concrete, or painted concrete, look with the aged, Old World feel.”

Shaw Hospitality’s new multi-platform Community collection tells the story of connection and togetherness. The brand’s designers ventured to Morocco, where they immersed themselves in the country’s rich sense of community and culture to find inspiration for the collection’s designs. “They didn’t just look at traditional Moroccan designs and colorways, they also looked at the landscape which is where a lot of the abstract views came from,” said Robert Stuckey, director, hospitality and retail markets.

With Community, customers are encouraged to create layered, diverse spaces that foster community. A collection that will eventually include four complimenting components, Community is set to be a one-stop-shop for hospitality design. Broadloom rugs and custom broadloom, along with coordinating hard surface products, for hospitality-centric spaces.

In its initial stage, Tailor Tuft custom tufting broadloom machine is allowing for pile height customization. “We are the only manufacturer as of today with it and the biggest thing it does is creates high definition between your textures. It’s really crisp and clean how we can move. It creates almost a hand woven experience with commercial density,” said Stuckey.

The latest Daltile launch offers a broad palette of fashion-driven products with exceptional performance features. “Each line brings something unique to the table, and we are confident that hospitality designers who have not yet explored the endless possibilities of installing tile will do so with these collections,” said Paij Thorn-Brooks, vice president of marketing for Dal-Tile Corporation.

Included in the lineup is Revalia, a ceramic mosaic collection, full of geometric shapes and eclectic colors that bring fashion and structural dimension to spaces. From fan mosaics to kaleidoscope mosaics, Revalia adds structural dimension designs.