Other Interior Types

These new products also solve regularly occurring problems in other types of interiors. High-traffic interiors everywhere can benefit from high-resolution digital artwork that is protected from dents and scratches and easy to clean. Linear drains that provide effective water management in barrier-free showers can also be used to create beautiful bathrooms that feature large-format tile or stone throughout both wet and dry areas.

High-Traffic Interiors

Walls in high-traffic interiors regularly experience bumps and collisions. They are also a perfect surface to make an impression upon the many people that constantly move past them. With high-impact protected and stain-resistant digital wall art, designers now have a double-duty tool that can support aesthetic themes, offer directional cues, or incorporate logos and branding with beautiful, high-resolution images that will look good for a long time.

Inspiring Commercial Interiors

It is a well-known fact that people are the most expensive asset in an office building. Crafting spaces that will motivate employees and inspire creativity is another way that the office space can be designed to optimize its most valuable asset. Use art or custom graphics as the wall cladding, instead of paint or wallpaper, to create interior spaces with personality.

Photo courtesy of Inpro

Crafting spaces that will motivate employees and inspire creativity is another way that the office space can be designed to optimize its most valuable asset.

Contemporary Commercial Interiors

Digital wall art can contribute toward achieving a contemporary aesthetic, not only in its unlimited colors and patterns and extraordinarily large art selection, but also in the way that the physical installation is mounted. There are several mounting options available, including standoffs, screw holes and caps, adhesive, double-sided tape, and cables. Standoffs can offer an interior art installation a more contemporary look and feel than traditional frames. When specifying a standoff product, look for solutions that offer an additional styrene backer to provide extra rigidity to the structure. The increased rigidity will eliminate bowing over the life of the art piece.

Beautiful Bathrooms

Using a linear drain instead of the traditional center-placed drain also makes it possible to revolutionize the look and feel of the bathroom space in two important ways. Large format tile can now be laid in the shower without being cut, and drains have been designed to support the overall aesthetics of the space.

Use Large Format Tile in the Shower

Traditional center-placed drains limited flooring material choices in showers to either small mosaic tile or large format tile that was cut and pie-pieced together to accommodate the 360-degree floor pitch. Linear drains have eliminated this limitation and allow for the entire floor to slope in one direction towards the drain. This new approach to draining enables designers to use large format tiles, stone slabs, or solid surface materials in the shower floor, minimizing the presence of grout lines and making it possible to use one material in both wet and dry sides of the bathroom, visually opening the space up.

Photo courtesy of Infinity Drain

Linear drains enable large-format tile to be used throughout the bathroom, minimizing the presence of grout lines.

Incorporate Drains as a Design Element

Linear drains are available in a number of styles and finishes to complement the overall design aesthetic of the space. The four most common styles of a decorative top grate are: perforated, wedge wire, tile insert, and closed top.

Perforated top grates are typically the least expensive. These patterned grates are often constructed of 304 stainless steel in 16 gauge or less and are fabricated on a break press. The patterns are either punched out or cut out with a laser.

Wedge wire top grates are often the sturdiest grates available. Constructed of 316 stainless steel in 12 gauge, these grates can have a load rating of up to 5,000 pounds.

The tile insert frame incorporates the same tile used in the floor of the shower into the physical grate of the drain, essentially camouflaging the drain to appear like the rest of the shower floor. There is a ¼-inch gap between the frame and the linear drain channel, which is where the water drains down to the outlet and through to the waste line. The tile insert tray arrives on the jobsite empty, and the tile setter places a small tile into the tray. Depending upon the manufacturer, the frame can accommodate flooring material up to ¾ inch thick.

The closed-top grate is a hybrid between the perforated grate and the tile insert frame. The grate top is a piece of stainless steel, similar to the perforated grate, but without any holes or patterns punched into the material. There is a ¼-inch gap around the four edges of the solid grate material, into which the water drains from the shower floor.

New products offer designers new tools in their arsenal to advance the interior space. From health-care interiors to commercial interiors and bathrooms, these new drains, wall coverings, and flooring options will enable designers to meet existing challenges in these spaces a little more easily and further expand the possibilities of the interior space.

End Notes

¹Lent, T.; Silas, J.; and Vallette, J. “Resilient Flooring & Chemical Hazards: A Comparative Analysis of Vinyl and Other Alternatives for Health Care.” Healthy Building Network, April 2009. Print.

²“Healthcare-associated Infections.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 02 March 2016. Web. http://www.cdc.gov/hai/surveillance.

Jeanette Fitzgerald Pitts has written dozens of continuing education articles about a variety of building products.