British Library, London & Boston Spa

 

The carpet tiles were required for the reading rooms, the reader registration area, the shop and offices at the main British Library building in St Pancras, London, designed by the architect Sir Colin St.John Wilson. This is the largest public building to have been built in the 20th century, spread across fourteen floors, five of which are below ground. The tiles are also installed at other British Library premises at Boston Spa in Yorkshire dedicated to providing document delivery services.

Tessera Sales Manager Brian Pringle said: “This has been an exciting and challenging project for the company requiring a high degree of detailed design work and close ongoing contact with our clients in the British Library Estates team. Essentially, they were looking for an organisation that could deliver a quality product to meet a very specific brief. We were asked to design three bespoke carpet tile ranges which would retain the aesthetics of the existing carpet tiles but deliver superior performance, to cater for the millions of visitors anticipated over the next decade".

"We achieved this by designing tiles with greater yarn density and heavier pile weight, thereby increasing the resistance to wear and tear, and we also adapted the actual pile constructions to increase the overall longevity of the floorcoverings. We created a cut and loop pile design in the formal shade of green required for the reading rooms and a flecked grey version for use in the office areas. For the visitor’s shop and readers registration area we created a warm and dusky terracotta textured loop pile tile. Each tile range is designed to perform for at least ten years despite the heavy visitor and employee traffic expected”.

The carpet tile installation at the main British Library building at St Pancras was carried out by Abbeywood Floorcoverings Limited of Sidcup, Kent, and in Boston Spa the contractor was Greens of Morley, Leeds.