Tarkett teamed up with designer Patricia Urquiola to create a flooring system with a tactile feel and extremely comfortable feel underfoot, fully recyclable and with an impressively low circular carbon footprint.

The collaboration began with an invitation to visit the DESSO Carpet Design Centre in the Netherlands. Attracted by her clear design vision and her commitment to circular design, the DESSO design team quickly established a fluid dialogue with Urquiola. Together, over a period of 18 months, they embarked upon a journey of research and experimentation, designing and developing a versatile collection that carries all the hallmarks of Urquiola's distinctive design approach and one that fits seamlessly with the shared common vision to make a collection with the lowest possible environmental impact.

From the outset, Urquiola wanted to avoid the organic lines so prevalent in current interior design projects, instead she looked to the grid structure of woven textiles like tweed and bouclé for inspiration and incorporate this in a tufted carpet tile. She wanted to push the limits and experiment together with the DESSO designers and go beyond current limits of what has already been done. Through masterful handling of colours in a grid like formation, Urquiola successfully provided the tiles with a sense of depth. This visual effect gives the floor a soft and textured look – a three-dimensional appearance.

Crucially, Tarkett and Urquiola shared a common vision to make a collection with the lowest possible environmental impact. The only carpet tile manufacturer with a closed-loop recycling system, Tarkett limits the use of virgin raw materials for new products and avoids common, carbon-emitting options such as incineration and landfill at product end-of-life. This closed-loop system ensures that DESSO carpet tiles record an impressively low circular carbon footprint - one that Tarkett is continually working to shrink even further.

The DESSO & Patricia Urquiola collection is 100% recyclable, designed to be disassembled so the components can be easily recycled into raw material for new carpet tiles. The circular carbon footprint of the collection is 1,03 kg CO2/m2. We managed to keep the environmental footprint of this collection so low because we can include the benefits for closed-loop-recycling in the life cycle assessment of our tiles, whereas our competition can only opt for carbon emitting options such as incineration or landfill at the end of their carpet tile’s life.

The result: a collection that combines technical expertise with tactility and textural beauty. For new, and renewed, beginnings. Comprising twelve different colours, forming a spectrum of neutrals, toned-down shades and accents to choose from.

* According to the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) S-P-08561 – DESSO & Patricia Urquiola externally verified by Bureau Veritas, based on the total carbon footprint (Modules A-D) with a closed loop circular recycling scenario.
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