Interior

Terrazzo, corten, and marble suit Asian contexts in new Formica collection

Formica Group launches new Asia Collection laminates with designs anchored on Asian urban lifestyles

March 21, 2018

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By 

Denny Mata

While more interior and architecture products in the market are going more sustainable and environmentally responsible, another apparent and vital inclusion to design today is local culture This is manifested in the Formica Asia Collection 2017-2019: Formica For Me and Formica For More.

During the Asia Collection’s launch in the Philippines, Formica opened the night with an audio-visual presentation, introducing Formica For Me and Formica For More and emphasizing that their “laminates interweave in all aspects of everyday life.” As the leader in the laminate industry, Formica Group introduces their Formica For Me and Formica For More collections, two sets of advanced laminate designs that best suit the Asian market—the former for residential spaces and the latter for commercial use.

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Formica For Me

The first collection adheres strongly to the human-oriented design concept. Formica For Me collection “has kept its fingers on the pulse of residential design trends with the advanced designs that would best suit Asian residential lifestyle.” The collection echoes four residential design themes: Asian Urban, Comfort Mode, Fresh Nature, and Sophisticated Lux.

Formica’s “Fresh Nature” themed laminates in a small apartment setting. For city dwellers living in small apartments, we thought that it would be nice to create a fresh and healthy space with this design concept that promotes smart usage of working and living spaces. One of the tricks is to utilize fresh colours and embedding multi-purpose furniture that can double up as storage spaces.

Asian Urban is anchored on the jet-setter lifestyle of Asians, exploring things, places, and history that connect humans physically and culturally. Meanwhile, Comfort Mode is inspired by the grace of ballet dancers and their delicate expression of mindfulness and contemplation. Fresh Nature on the other hand provides limitless possibilities with its fresh, relaxing, and sometimes playful characteristics, much like nature itself. Lavish and luxurious lifestyle embolden the Sophisticated Lux line, appreciating the most exquisite and artistic in life.

According to different preferences for home decoration, Formica For Me collection offers 54 new items to create comfortable and stylish living environments.

Formica’s “Sophisticated Lux” themed laminates in a penthouse setting. We have used a unique CNC linear cut to create an artistic feature wall that reveals layers of plywood behind our laminate surface. By varying the engraving height during the machining process, different widths and depths are created on a liner path, hence creating a pattern like water droplet.
“Asian Urban” themed laminates in a shophouse setting. Playing with the contrast of modern surfaces, we have used a unique laminate layer contour technique to create a creative feature wall, mimicking the contours of a natural landscape, at the dining room. Through laser-cutting and the incremental variation of size between the layers, depth is created – turning the otherwise flat laminate into a 3D object.

Formica For More

More than a laminate, Formica’s products are cutting-edge and innovative, persistently tracing and analyzing new innovations and trends globally. Hence, in Formica For More collection, eight new themes are introduced: Purified Future, Expression, Nature Celebration, Urban Contemporary, Cultural Ease, Refined Classic, Ancient Heritage, and Rich Gratification.

This new commercial range of Formica’s products offers 38 new designs that can be applied to a variety of topographies including but not limited to education, hospital, restaurant, hotel, and business office.

‘Cultural Ease’ uses warm, earthy tones to create a humble and stress-free environment. The stacking of pre-cut pieces of laminate onto a full sheet allows it to be used like a tile, making the fabrication of a feature wall as easy and seamless as piecing up a jigsaw puzzle. This design concept would be suitable for hotels, private clubs and restaurants.”
Expression consists of a play of vivid colours, bold designs and coloured lights. It is about creating art without limitations. This design concept would be suitable for boutique hotels, schools, offices and restaurants.
Nature Celebration is an earthy style with light-mid tone wood grains and healthy fresh tones. Highlight: With sustainability now an everyday consideration, recycling must go further to address concerns surrounding the environment. This Terrazzo wall is made from scrap materials from Formica production papers. This design concept would be suitable for retail outlets, public spaces, hospitals and schools.
“Clean lines and modern use of materials and colours give ‘Urban Contemporary’ a welcoming and chic interior space. This design concept would be suitable for restaurants, shopping malls and offices.” (Caption from Formica’s brochure)

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‘Refined Classic’ is the perfect combination of western and eastern influence, where we combine the usage of warm metallics against earthy neutrals. Coffee Wall – the cutting of pre-determined crease lines allow the laminate surface to form intriguing folds when squeezed together, creating a landscape of controlled hills and ridges. Seat Backs – Cutting away the top surface of the laminate after bonding to a substrate reveals the original colour of the substrate to create contrast. With this technique, it is possible to create simple groove lines or more complex CNC-milling of patterns to suit the environment.
In ‘Ancient Heritage,’ we can see the usage of close colour tones with different materials. Mounted onto a substrate before perforating to shapes, we have freed laminates from the constraints of being merely a covering. You can create bespoke screens to divide space into separate distinct areas. This design concept would be suitable for resorts, hotels and restaurants.

“Formica products always lead the trends in global interior design, and the launch of Formica For More collection and Formica For Me collection is a brainchild and a commitment of Formica Asia to create stylish commercial and residential spaces for our clients, as well as satisfying the ever-changing market needs in Asia. In particular, the Formica For Me collection is a brand new residential design collection specialized for Asian market. This is the first time for us to launch collection solely tailored to the residential market in Asia,” said Mr. Jerome Michel, Formica Asia President. 

 

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