Imaging Thermal Beech Wood Flooring Wins 2012 Red Dot Award

click image to zoomBeech wood flooring thermally treated and imaged through sanding and staining processes won a red dot 2012 award for mafi. The U.S. sales office is based in Venice, CA. Mafi Carving Club I, a natural wooden flooring that resists water and can be produced with designer patterns, was among the recipients this month of the red dot award: product design 2012.

Based in Salzburg, Austria, mafi Naturholzboden is a family business doing €22 million in sales, 70 percent of it exported.

Carving Club 1 was among 4,515 items, only a handful of them wood-based, that were evaluated by a 30-member expert jury for the annual European product competition. 

On July 2, 2012, the presentation of the red dot quality seal was given at a gala event in Essen, Germany, attended by more than 1,000 guests from the international design world.

The “mafi Carving Club I” is on display for four weeks in a special exhibition in the red dot design museum.

The winning natural wooden floor mafi Carving Club I is made of thermally treated beechwood impressed with a Burberry design pattern. Lacquer-free, it is natural oiled, which mafi says makes the floor extremely stable but on the other hand still breathable and easy to clean with water and soap.

A thermal wood treating process perserves the flooring against rot and mold, and makes it water resistant, using no chemical additives. Dried with lower heat, the beech wood gets a darker coloring and tendencies to natural swelling and shrinking are reduced. 

Single color shades create individual character of the flooring. To create the typical Burberry pattern, the top layer of the floor is engraved, then sanded, allowing brushed fields to arise on the surface.

This gives  the floor  special haptics - the technical term for optical effects - as well as a nice feel under foot, says mafi, including anti-slip properties.

“We always treat wood with respect and in the most natural way possible," says Friedrich Fillafer, CEO of mafi. "Characteristics like knots, cracks and structure are our base on which we create our products. Nature is our best designer.”

The mafi beech wood flooring along with other 2012 red dot award-winning products are on display in the red dot design museum in Essen until July 29.