Flooring that can tell your age, sex and weight or provide hours of entertainment might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie but believe it or not, it’s here. Going beyond bland wood, tile and carpet are these 15 incredibly creative designs and materials ranging from ultra-modern glossy panels to Technicolor parquet. They’re customizable, unique, surprising and anything but boring.
Plastic Flooring as Drawing Surface
(images via: Hemmendorff.com)
Designer Olle Hemmendorff wasn’t too pleased with the wood floors in his apartment, so he decided to cover them with a thin film of white plastic – although, that didn’t look quite right either. Without a plan or even preliminary sketches, Olle took a fat black permanent marker to the floor and doodled away until he had covered the entire surface with drawings of wood planks, flowers and even an alligator.
ResoFloor, High Gloss Floor Panels
(images via: Lars Contzen)
The ‘ResoFloor’ by Lars Contzen is a super-resistant high gloss surface that’s like a wall decal for your floor. Made of compressed fiber board, these panels are resistant to friction, scrubbing and scratching and come in eye-catching, graphic, contemporary designs including a lovely faux bois.
Elaborately Stenciled Concrete
(images via: Concrete Network)
Concrete is cold, hard and generally not all that attractive. But with a little paint, it can be given a warm and inviting appearance that you have to look twice at to realize it’s not tile. Intricate stenciled ‘mosaics’, florals and other designs can be applied to concrete to give it a look that’s practically unrecognizable.
Configurable Floor Cushions with Zippers
(images via: Pling Collection)
If you’ve ever wanted a soft, comfortable surface that can instantly transform from a floor covering into seating, this configurable set of floor cushions from Pling Collection fits the bill. Lean it up against the wall as a sort of sofa, or use it as a modular mattress. The cushions zip together in practically any configuration you can think of, so it’s ultra-customizable.
Giant Floor Stickers as Alternatives to Rugs
(images via: Rockett St. George)
It may not be super soft, but it won’t slip and it certainly makes a stunning statement. This giant floor sticker by Rockett St. George can be used as stylish alternative to rugs or on walls or windows. At 125cm in diameter, it’s just large enough to serve as an anchor for living room furniture or an eye-catching accent anywhere else in the house.
Modular Wood Flooring System
(images via: Home Interiors Zone)
Whether you change your space often or want to be able to move them from room to room, these modular wood floor panels by Klaartje Daamen are versatile and good looking, too. Made of cardboard sandwich paneled tiles finished with MDF and layered with walnut veneer, these cushioned and soundproof panels can be folded up into furniture when not in use as flooring. Each tile has hooks and holes underneath for easy assembly, and they come in varying heights.
Persian Puzzle Rug
(images via: Kids Modern)
It’s an art project and a home accent in one! Have fun making your own unique design with the Persian Puzzle Rug by Katrin Sonnleitner. The classic version comes with 9 colors, and it’s also available in black and white or shades of green. Each puzzle piece is made of a recyclable mix of natural and synthetic rubber.
Wood Puzzle Flooring
(images via: PuzzleFloor)
If you prefer wood to carpeting but still like the puzzle idea, here’s a flooring system that is just as fun to put together and comes in a range of beautiful, natural shades. Made of solid hardwood, the Puzzle Floor is easier to put together than traditional wood floors made with panels. You can mix and match the 13 available colors to create a one-of-a-kind design.
LightFader Interactive Illuminated Flooring
(images via: CoolBoom.net)
After walking across the interactive surface of LightFader flooring, your footprints remain behind for about a minute as glowing ‘light prints’. Pressure displaces the fluid inside the LightFader floor, so the look is always changing. This floor system consists of a modular system of tiles easily connected by a link cable, made of a strong scratch-resistant material.
Modern Colored Parquet Floor
(images via: Plastolux)
This modern, colored, enlarged version of parquet flooring by Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekte is fun, vibrant and full of possibilities. You’d have to have a pretty limited decor palette to pull this look off, but the architects certainly haven’t shied away from making this flooring the focal point of this building’s interior.
Digital Printed Floors
(image via: GizMag)
Iranian artist Seyed Alavi incorporated a digital image of an aerial view of Sacramento into the carpet installed on the pedestrian bridge connecting the Sacramento International Airport to the parking garage. This is just one creative example of how digital prints have found their way onto flooring, walls, curtains, ceilings and other unexpected surfaces.
Intelligent Carpet Can Determine Age, Sex, Weight
(image via: TrendHunter)
This intelligent carpet, invented in Japan (where else?) can tell the age, sex and weight of anyone who walks across it. The designers claim that it can distinguish between people in their 20s and 60s with 100% accuracy, analyzing data collected to determine foot size, stride, walking speed, weight and center of gravity. The carpet is said to have the aim of making “business decision-making far more efficient”, whatever that means. Still, like any other carpet, the intelligent carpet does require the services of things like a Bissell product whenever it gets slightly dirty, although it is unknown if dirt hinders its ability to tell how old you are.
Dimension Flooring System
(image via: Yanko Design)
The idea of ‘dimension flooring’, designed by Alistair Bramley, is that the free-flowing design on the laminate flooring surface follows the flow of the room – how furniture is situated and how people move around it. Video footage of how people moved through the space would be used to generate patterns that would be printed and assembled accordingly.
Flying Carpet
(image via: ModernTots)
Giant wedges of wool and polyurethane foam turn what would have been a boring everyday rug into a dynamic piece that serves a dual purpose by providing a surface to lean against while lounging. It comes in two different sizes and three colors and would be especially fun for a kid’s room.
‘Bloody Stairway’ Fluid Carpeting
(image via: Bosch-Fjord)
A fluid flow of bright red flows down a staircase and into a room like a stream of blood in this somewhat gruesome design by Bosch and Fjord. This unique design is not available to the public, but it’s an intriguing idea.
