Commercial flooring solutions and surfaces’ brand Shaw Contract, recently announce that Dye Lab, one of their best-selling collection, now has an expanded colour range with thirteen unique, new saturated hues.
The impact of colour on the built environment, and how colour shapes our experiences within a given space, are increasingly top of mind among today’s designers. For the re-introduction of the iconic Dye Lab collection, the Shaw Contract Design Studio conducted extensive research on colour to enhance the collection with newly curated colour ways. After conducting hundreds of dye experiments to establish the colour palette and understand tonal variation, the team challenged the traditional beck dye process and developed an innovative approach to the dyeing that creates an unpredictable, varied and bespoke visual.
“To create the visual for Dye Lab, we confronted our process and challenged manufacturing to forget everything they thought they knew about how piece-dyed product was made,” explains Ashley Olson, design manager for Shaw Contract Workplace Studio. “We altered the status quo to create a product that is truly unique.”
Dye Lab’s palette draws upon nature, a colour journey which included the exploration of more than 20 dyes including madder root, Osage orange, sandalwood and henna. Inspired by colour produced with natural and plant-based ingredients, the collection contains hundreds of mutable variations, subtle ranges of luxe colour and texture. No two carpet tiles are ever the same – each installation a bespoke work.
Each carpet tile in the Dye Lab collection features colour ranges from light to medium to dark, from subtle to rich. By keeping the most beloved colour from the original collection and adding a variety of new shades, an updated palette unfolds, one that is both contemporary, timeless and always sophisticated. The refreshed collection features intense saturated hues, softer washes and a wider range of neutral tones.
Dye Lab is constructed with EcoWorx® backing and Eco Solution Q nylon and is Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Silver. Shaw Contract’s reclamation program provides a responsible end of life plan for all Shaw EcoWorx carpet tile. The collection is designed to positively impact the human experience in the built environment through its PVC-free material chemistry, biophilic design, texture and acoustical properties.
Dye Lab challenges the process — the Shaw Contract design team was inspired by traditional textile dyeing techniques where fabric is woven, twisted, bundled dipped and dyed to produce an ultimately varied result. The collection’s innovative manufacturing process mimics this technique and yields an unprecedented depth to the colour with artful, random nuances, progressing from light to saturated — an irregular beauty, harmonious with the natural world.