Tectonique Press Release

TECTONIQUE 5.5 FOR OBERFLEX: A NEW "FULLY 3D" CEILING SOLUTION!

PRESENTED EXCLUSIVELY for the first time at Batimat from November 7th to November 12th – Paris Porte de Versailles

Stand 7.2 H 50

Oberflex makes an impressive re-entry into the suspended ceiling market with TECTONIQUE 5.5. The collection rethinks completely the aesthetic and technical potential of ceilings. TECTONIQUE 5.5, a new collaboration between the manufacturer and 5.5 designers, frees architects’ and interior designers' creativity by offering them a range of possibilities previously available through customization only.

Inspired by great contemporary architecture, as well as by the mechanics of the Earth’s plates, TECTONIQUE 5.5 enables the creation of completely new volumes and styles, while enhancing the beauty of natural wood.

It is also an effective acoustic solution, suitable for both the largest and the smallest spaces, with a simplified mounting system, easily installed by any contractor.

Last but not least, TECTONIQUE 5.5 is an eco-designed product which uses Oberflex new-generation panels guaranteeing minimum environmental impact.

A three dimensional collection:

- Design: the TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection by 5.5 designers for Oberflex illustrates a design approach incorporated into the product development process. It completely renews the potential acoustic performances and the mounting system of suspended ceilings and expands the range of aesthetic solutions offered to architects and interior designers.

This innovative collection was selected for the Batimat 2011 Design Trophies.

- Decorative: based on a standardized installation system and several tile sizes, TECTONIQUE 5.5 enables to create three-dimensional effects and styles previously reserved for customized projects. TECTONIQUE 5.5 enhances the beauty of natural wood through a choice of 4 universes proposing 6 patterns each which leads to 24 combinations for very unique ceiling designs.

- Sustainable: the TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection uses Oberflex new-generation eco-designed panels. This is a reversible solution, easy to remove and reuse. The different elements of the system can be separated at the end of the life cycle, ensuring its full recycling.

Press pack - November 2011

TECTONIQUE 5.5 FOR OBERFLEX

A NEW "FULLY 3D" CEILING SOLUTION!

"Plate tectonics, originally called continental drift, is the current model for how the Earth functions internally. It is the surface expression of terrestrial life. Several phenomena have been identified by scientists to describe these movements which create the topology of our planet. The TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection of ceilings for Oberflex was born out of a desire to make our ceilings move, to give them three-dimensional shapes through the design of a new installation system. It can be summed up as:

Everything moves deep down, everything changes on the surface.

The result is a series of models designed as moving surfaces which are ripped, torn apart, sliced and meet again to form micro-landscapes which remind us that our world is very much alive.”

5.5 designers

CONTENTS

Everything moves deep down

- A completely new patented mounting system

- A new approach to acoustic performance

- An entirely eco-designed product

- Simplified installation and maintenance

Everything changes on the surface

- Ceilings take on three dimensions…

- and style

- Bespoke becomes standard

- A solution suited to all types of worksite

Collections

- Continent

- Faille

- Éruption

- Glissement

Tectonique 5.5 in brief

About Oberflex

- Expertise

- Design

- Sustainable development

About 5.5 designers

Everything moves deep down

In order to offer a truly innovative solution, Oberflex and 5.5 designers took a completely fresh look at how to design a suspended ceiling and approach interiors.

The new collection from Oberflex anticipates every installation difficulty to adopt a completely new and very simple mounting system, massively increasing decorative possibilities.

The brand goes beyond its traditional area of expertise with Tectonique 5.5 to offer a comprehensive system giving architects and interior designers a standardized solution, allowing exclusive creations in line with the latest interior design trends.

- Simplified installation and maintenance: TECTONIQUE 5.5 facilitates installers’ work as a result of its lightweight panels and patented mounting system. Installation does not require any special tools and the whole system is adjusted and adapted for simple and precise installation and removal. Finally, an assembly diagram specially developed for every configuration of the range ensures the system can be grasped very quickly.

- A patented mounting system: at the heart of TECTONIQUE 5.5 innovation, the mounting system designed by 5.5 designers allows tiles to be installed at an angle or staggered to create interiors or styles that only costly bespoke solutions could previously achieve. The Tectonique 5.5 system comprises rails, brackets and sections specially developed and designed to create all the models in the collection.

- A new approach to acoustic performance: ordinarily, suspended ceilings’ acoustic insulation depends on perforation of the panels. The new TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection comes up with another way of absorbing sound, not via perforations, but through interaction between spaces and openings, creating highly effective sound traps and so allowing full reign to the attractive design of tiles’ surfaces.

- An entirely eco-designed product: the collection is manufactured using new generation Oberflex panels. Its innovative structure reduces tiles’ density by 60%. Production using the Oberflex industrial tool avoids wasted materials and optimizes storage and transportation.

These new panels also comply with the most demanding air-quality standards with an A+ rating.

Finally, Tectonique 5.5 now also meets European worksite waste management directives due to come into force in 2020, since the product’s manufacturing anticipates end-of-life management, with easy removal and separation of materials ready for recycling. The metal mounting system quickly detaches from the wood tiles, allowing the steel to be recycled via the metal recovery chain, while the tiles are sent as biomass for heating.

Everything changes on the surface

Inspired by the relief of our landscape, TECTONIQUE 5.5 gives architects and interior designers new potential to express themselves. The collection, which is available in 24 models and as many types of natural wood makes it possible to draw on a wide range of three-dimensional effects and styles, with several formats available.

Like Lego®, the system offers predefined diagrams which can be combined at will to create unique configurations.

With TECTONIQUE 5.5:

- Ceilings take on three dimensions…

Their exclusive mounting system means that the TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection’s tiles can be staggered, set side by side, laid on top of each other, tilted, etc. and create series of spaces giving the ceiling animation and movement.

The ceiling therefore becomes a freer and more creative three-dimensional expressive surface.

- … and style

With eight main formats of tiles available, the TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection offers a wide range of installation designs unique on the market.

It allows the creation of new styles in two or three dimensions and offers a solution that is just as appropriate in the smallest or the largest spaces.

- Bespoke becomes standard

Available in four collections, each with six distinct patterns, TECTONIQUE 5.5 offers a vast array of possible models which can be combined at will to create a completely individual result.

- A solution for all types of worksite

Theatres, conference halls, public spaces, offices, hotels, private spaces, etc. – TECTONIQUE 5.5 is both a technical and aesthetic response, offering the benefits of original designs and the warmth of natural wood.

A universal, accessible solution to meet the needs of a construction sector demanding originality and simplicity.

COLLECTIONS

For 5.5 designers, the ceiling – re-imagined by them as a possible landscape –becomes a rich and diverse expressive surface.

Inspired by the main types of relief created by the movement of the Earth’s plates, the present the TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection in four main families, each of which has six different installation models in two or three dimensions.

CONTINENT, FAILLE, ÉRUPTION and GLISSEMENT therefore each represent different interpretations, with their own layers of meaning and evocative colour schemes.

CONTINENT / CONTINENT Collection

Models: Plaque (plate) / Fissure (crack) / Strate (stratum) / Décrochement (misalignment) / Dérive (drift) / Bloc (block)

The continental plates forming the surface of these models drift and divide, offering graphical ceilings with flat surfaces.

FAILLE / FAULT Collection

Models: Plateau (plateau) / Brèche (breccia) / Rupture (break) / Affaissement (subsidence) / Extension (extension) / Dislocation (dislocation)

These signs of geological breakage lead to vertical movement of independent plates. The ceilings raise up and fall back to form high landscapes.

ÉRUPTION / ERUPTION Collection

Models: Volcan (volcano) / Dorsale (ridge) / Rift (rift) / Magma (magma) / Cratère (krater) / Séisme (earthquake)

The thrust of magma causes real explosions which explode through the surface to firm a series of ceilings with uneven relief.

GLISSEMENT / SLIDE Collection

Models: Soulèvement (upthrow) / Convergence (convergence) / Collision (collision) / Friction (friction) / Frottement (friction) / Tremblement (tremor)

The movement of plates by sliding generates ceiling structures with steep slopes. The blocks overthrust, collide and seem to be constantly moving.
Tectonique 5.5 IN BRIEF:

TECTONIQUE is:

- The first "standard" system for “bespoke” ceilings

- A simple means of creating three-dimensional ceilings

- New installation designs and new shapes applied to suspended ceilings

- A very free form of expression for architects

- A suspended ceiling in real wood, combining aesthetics, warmth and impressive specifications (acoustic, fire resistance, etc.)

It is also:

- A simple and complete system for “ready to install” suspended ceilings

- Pre-defined adjustments to the various components for optimum results

- Installation which does not require any special tools

- Acoustic performance via absorption (depending on model)

- Fire resistant (Panels with Euroclass fire rating Bs1d0)

- A system tried and tested by interior design professionals

- A patented system

TECTONIQUE is an eco-designed product:

- Lightweight

- Optimization of formats (less material and optimized transport)

- Low worksite impact (during installation and use)

- Small number of materials, easy to separate and recycle at the end of their life

- Wide selection of light wood types to optimize reflection of light

ABOUT OBERFLEX

Expertise: In  1968, Oberflex has  developed the  first  HPL panels  with  a genuine wood veneer base. Since then, the company has been  developing this unique and  traditional know-how, inventing  new ways  to enhance wood trough its decorative panels collections.  Oberflex is constantly rethinking  wood, applying innovation  on  textures, tints, assembly and perforation techniques  to  propose a wide range of more than 500 references

Design: the design approach is at the heart of Oberflex’s innovation policy and is totally incorporated into product development. This allows it to stay constantly connected to the aesthetic and technical expectations of the market and of end users.

Many collaborations have been developed at the initiative of the brand’s artistic director, revealing the full potential of wood-laminate panels in interior design. The project undertaken with 5.5 designers illustrates the company’s ambition to form long-term partnerships in order to continue innovating into the future and invite inter-disciplinary consideration of its product range and its production tool.

Sustainable development: Oberflex believes that working with natural materials requires a genuine commitment to sustainable development. Oberflex has obtained dual FSC and PEFC certification, guaranteeing that the wood it uses comes from sustainably managed forests.

The first company in its sector in Lorraine to have carried out a Bilan Carbone (carbon assessment), it invests to reduce its impacts via  a range of practical initiatives such as installing a biomass boiler, optimizing flows and transport, sorting and recycling waste and adopting an ISO14001 approach.

In addition to this proactive work, it trains its senior managers in incorporating eco-design into the company’s strategy. The TECTONIQUE 5.5 collection is the first result of this consideration and is therefore the first completely eco-designed product in the Ober range.

About 5.5 designers

5.5 designers is a design research and consultancy firm founded in 2003 by Vincent Baranger, Jean-Sébastien Blanc, Anthony Lebossé and Claire Renard. The four designers met while studying at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts Appliquée et de Métier d’Art (ENSAAMA) in Paris. Their first project, Réanim, which led to the "medicine of objects", marked the start of their rise in the design world. They currently live and work in Paris and are taking on an increasing number of projects with major brands.

Vincent Baranger (born 28/05/1980 in La Roche-sur-Yon)  
Baccalauréat in Applied Arts in Montaigu, degree in Applied Arts from ENS Cachan, DSAA in product design from ENSAAMA Paris  

Jean-Sébastien Blanc (born 21/10/1980 in Nîmes)
MANAA in Nîmes, BTS and DSAA in product design from ENSAAMA Paris, DEA CPI from ENSAM Paris

Anthony Lebossé (born 14/01/1981 in Caen)
Baccalauréat in Applied Arts in Caen, BTS in product design at La Souterraine, DSAA in product design from ENSAAMA Paris

Claire Renard (born 12/11/1980 in Poissy)
MANAA, BTS and DSAA in product design from ENSAAMA Paris, DEA CPI à l'ENSAM Paris

This new generation of French design is gradually becoming recognised on the international stage for its socially-aware and optimistic designs. For 5.5 designers, industrial design is not sufficiently taken into account by corporate policies. Yet it is the crucial tool for achieving the renewal necessary at this time of social upheaval. The system which spawned a society of waste and ecological and financial crisis is no longer viable and the time has come for this cycle to end. The new challenges are now known. All that is left to do is define the bases for this change, which requires us to reinvent our way of consuming, producing and therefore designing. In this massive inter-generational project, in which 5.5 designers would like to play a role, creativity must be at the heart of all programmes, replacing the purely monetary and consumerist aspect which has now reached the end of the road. Since 2003, the members of 5.5 designers have strived to question their status as designers and refused to be simply spectators of a system whose rules they do not control and for which they do not want to be responsible. That is why with each of their projects they try to go beyond the stylistic aspect of objects to focus on the definition of new processes which respond to these new challenges. Brands and production houses ranging from the luxury to mass retail sectors (Nespresso, Baccarat, LaCie, Oberflex, Skitsch, Bernardaud, the Pompidou Centre, La Corbeille, 3M, etc.) have been seduced by this approach and commissioned 5.5 designers for a wide array of projects, from products design to redesigning their interiors. Each of these collaborations produces something genuinely unique and always marked by humour and simplicity.