Durkan Kicks off BDNY With After-Hours Program at NYC’s Hottest New Cultural Venue—The Shed

NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2019 /3BL Media/—The Shed at New York City’s Hudson Yards has emerged as one of the most important additions to the cultural landscape since opening in April. Durkan hosted an exclusive event there this week for more than 200 guests in town attending BDNY. The flooring manufacturer, a division of Mohawk Group, brought together architecture, design and hospitality professionals on Sunday for an unforgettable evening of socializing and unwinding from the annual trade show. Together they experienced a dynamic presentation featuring three hands-on architects responsible for recent projects that are decidedly innovative.

In addition to exploring the most talked about construction for the arts since Lincoln Center, special guests interacted with the masterful custom flooring that Durkan produced for the eighth-floor Tisch Skylights. Rockwell Group, which collaborated on the architecture for the project, specified wide-plank solid white oak hardwood composed into a unique configuration for the 7,500-square-foot rehearsal and event space. Each day natural light pours in from two skylights and floor-to-ceiling window banks that face the Hudson River and the now-iconic Vessel centerpiece.

Headlining the evening’s program, which was titled “Gathering Places: Buildings That Foster Creativity and Conversation,” were Rockwell’s Greg Keffer, partner and studio leader, along with Anne Marie Lubrano, partner, Lubrano Ciavarra Architects, and Adam Rolston, managing and creative director of INC Architecture & Design. Stacy Shoemaker Rauen, editor-in-chief of Hospitality Design magazine, served as moderator. While much of the discussion focused on The Shed, Lubrano’s work for the TWA Hotel at JFK and Rolston’s for the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge also were featured.

“The selection of The Shed for the evening’s backdrop was unique, unusual and intriguing. The venue is all about the arts and is such a remarkable piece of engineering. Durkan could not have selected a better location to showcase these projects,” said Kathy Kesler, ASID, NCIDQ, interior architect and president of Miami-based Interspace Design Group. “Having three different areas to network and learn in this beautiful space was a unique concept with social integration and a great way to end our first day of BDNY.”

David Duncan, senior vice president of sales at Durkan, who helped facilitate the flooring installation at the Hudson Yards structure, said, “The Shed is a great source of pride for all involved because of its unparalleled place on the cultural scene as home to every type of art—music, dance, theater and the visual arts. It was critical that the architecture and interior design be a match to this higher purpose, and so we feel extremely privileged to have Durkan product play such an integral part of the built environment.”

This year at Boutique Design New York (BDNY), Durkan invited guests to experience a curated showcase of the latest broadloom, carpet tile and enhanced resilient tile collections for hospitality interiors. Also highlighted was the flooring manufacturer’s commitment to delivering industry-leading customer tools that not only enhance the creative process, but also reduce environmental impact.

BDNY is the leading trade fair and conference for hospitality design professionals, serving the eastern United States, Canada and Europe. For two high-energy days each November, BDNY brings together some 8,000 interior designers, architects, purchasing agents and owners/developers with more than 750 manufacturers and marketers of exceptional design elements for hospitality interiors.

Durkan’s latest collections, comprehensive hospitality flooring solutions and customer tools showcased at BDNY included: Free Play, a multi-category carpet collection based on the Surrealists’ cadavre exquis (or “Exquisite Corpse”) approach to creative collaboration; Sakiori, a woven enhanced resilient tile that combines the soft look of textiles and carpet with the durability of hard surface while paying homage to the makers of yesterday and today; and Large & Local, a domestically-manufactured, FloorScore certified collection of wide-plank enhanced resilient tile inspired by the beauty of the North Georgia mountains.

Inside Durkan’s booth this year at BDNY was p.s. (Personal Studio), the manufacturer’s latest interactive tool for customers to design, personalize and review custom flooring products online. P.s. gives access to best-in-class customer solutions to customize color, patterns and backgrounds of running line products, visualize them in room settings, and order digital or printed samples—with just the click of a button. Durkan’s innovative technology elevates the customer experience while greatly reducing the need for many of the non-digitized materials often produced as part of the hospitality flooring specification process.

About Durkan
From hotel lobbies and corridors to guest rooms and ballrooms, theaters, casinos and convention centers, Durkan is world-renowned as an industry leader in innovative design solutions and high style, high-performance hospitality carpet and hard surface flooring solutions. Durkan’s products are offered in a wide range of exclusive innovative pattern and texture technologies, including Definity™, an advanced generation precision sculpturing technology that produces the highest definition of texture, pattern and color available in hospitality carpet; and Synthesis™, which provides a three-dimensional layering effect using a custom base and Precision Dye Injection (PDI) surface that enables unprecedented image quality. For more information about the hospitality division of Mohawk Group, visit www.Durkan.com or call 800-241-4580.

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Contact:
Luke Chaffin
762.204.5607
luke_chaffin@mohawkind.com