Right now, the front of a furniture store along Corridor G leaves something to be desired.

Shattered bricks litter the ground around the store’s entrance, and cement blocks are exposed where white bricks used to be.

A temporary blue banner with the store’s name and logo hangs over the entranceway.

But that’s the price of progress at Wells Home Furnishings, where business continues to flourish amid a $1 million expansion project.
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If you’re interested in the future of the built environment book your tickets to Dallas now as the International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) World Workplace 2008 Conference & Expo is set to touch down in the Texas oil metropolis October 15-17.

The conference, a collaborative forum for facility managers and attendees addressing the built environment, will feature two keynote speakers. Stanford University Graduate School of business organizational-behavior professor Chip Heath will deliver the conference’s opening address, “Made to Stick, Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” Dr. Jonas Ridderstrale will close the conference with “Funky Business Forever,” including commentary on the state of business in the latter half of this decade. Read more » »

Commercial carpet manufacturer Bentley Prince Street is seeking entries, due May 16, to Ample Sample 2008, a competition conceived to combat the widespread epidemic of carpet samples.

Honoring creative reuse of carpet samples, the contest promotes awareness and the ability to repurpose this token of the design process, and is sponsored by Bentley Prince Street, Floor Focus magazine, and sustainable carpet sample design firm Tricycle. Unless they are digital, more often than not carpet samples end up in a landfill. Designers and architects are asked to “Rethink. Reuse. Upcycle,” to come up with a design that will be judged based on criteria including aesthetics, purpose, ease of creation, creativity, durability, and number and volume of carpet samples, or Tryks used. Read more » »

Twenty firms took to the stage of the Scotiabank Theater in Vancouver last month to accept the Interior Designers Institute of British Columbia Awards of Excellence. Hosted by Canadian TV personality Russell Porter, the program conferred 27 awards for projects in 10 categories: Residential, Multi-Residential, Hospitality, Workplace Total, Workplace Partial, Educational and Institutional, Retail, Health and Wellness, Other, and Best of Show.
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US demand for outdoor furniture and grill products (including patio heaters and accessories such as covers, cushions and grilling utensils) will increase 4.0 percent annually to $7.5 billion in 2011. The market will benefit from growth in the number of households and the increasing popularity of outdoor living areas such as patios, porches and decks. In addition, consumer lifestyle trends such as “cocooning” (spending significant time at home) and “outdoor rooms” (using items such as furniture and grills to extend the home’s living space outdoors) will support gains as consumers continue to trade up to better products. Read more » »