A new branch of innovation and sustainability for this flooring brand
The exhibition space for Twelve Oaks Flooring, premiered at the Toronto Interior Design Show 2023, aimed to achieve the goal of brand modernization by breaking convention while creating a memorable experience. The award winning immersive 400 square foot booth was designed as a reusable multi-media environment to challenge the public’s perception while showcasing product innovation.
Designer: Tracy Ho, ARIDO
Design Team: Joanne Chan, ARIDO; Bruce Freeman, ARIDO; Glenn Cheng, ARIDO
Design Firm: SDI Design Inc.
Photography: Splendid Projects and SDI Design Inc.
“MOVING PARTS: Design for a Complex World” was the challenge given by the show organizers to exhibitors. As designers, we are now faced with a reality that requires ongoing adaptation, building constant change and flexibility into how humans want to live and interact, incorporating sustainable materials, components, and reinvented manufacturing.
The secondary challenge was to support Twelve Oaks Flooring’s goal of brand modernization and to achieve this through design implementation. The exhibit had to undertake the requirements noted above, while conceptually communicating the company’s values of innovation, creativity, and perseverance to evoke a strong emotional response. Furthermore, as a sustainable exhibit the booth also needed to allow for interchangeable content, speed of assembly, disassembly, and simple transport to future trade shows.
Our solution to these challenges was The Secret Glade: a brief journey connecting nature to maker and back to nature. Visitors are greeted by a solid cube structure with a carved, layered archway leading the audience to a hidden space featuring an immersive experience.
Our design team took inspiration from Twelve Oaks’ namesake reference, ‘Gone with the Wind’, mimicking the experience of an allée (walkway) of twelve oak trees, creating organic profiles carved from the elevated wood floor. This implies the perspective of proceeding under a symmetrical tree canopy towards a destination. The twelve panels each feature a different flooring type from the collection are illuminated to create a feeling of movement while remaining fixed in their place.
Eventually, visitors arrive at The Secret Glade, an immersive experience designed to create an emotionally connective response, highlighting the circularity of the forest as a sustainable resource for flooring material. The projected artwork cycles between vignettes of sunlight, water, and forests, moving into the manufacturing process of the Gemtec flooring series, then returning to the regeneration of the forest.
Showcasing innovation, the entire assembly of the wood floor installation has been consciously left exposed. It shows the consumer each layer, from quality veneer, robust and highly sustainable backing, to the plywood subfloor layer.
From the custom exterior graphic enclosing The Secret Glade, comprised of zoomed in images of twelve oak trees, to the allée archway, the installation makes a striking and popular photo backdrop and a showstopping brand ambassador for Twelve Oaks.
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