Flooring specialist of the year

WINNER

Swiss Re contains 20,000 m² of Kingspan's raised access flooring

Kingspan access Floors
As a founding member of the Access Flooring Association, Kingspan was one of the first companies to see the potential of raised access floors. This was back in the 1970s, long before the invasion of workstations into the office environment created an urgent need to conceal and provide access to an array of wires and services. Since then, Kingspan has led the way in developing new access floor products, most recently devising a means to use the floor void to supply conditioned air. This not only eliminates the need for ductwork, but also reduces energy costs – just the kind of thing to impress the designers of the energy-efficient Swiss Re tower. Indeed, in July this year, the gherkin had some 20,000 m² of Kingspan’s raised access flooring installed.

Runners up

4m flooring uk
This year has been a hectic one for the Crewe-based firm, with major commercial projects under way at Birmingham International Airport and the Welsh Development Agency’s Optic Centre in North Wales.

It also continues to loom large in the motor industry, for which it has supplied more than 550,000 m² of flooring in recent years. This year, the firm has installed floors at Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich plant and the Land Rover plant in Solihull.

As one of the first flooring contractors to obtain Investor in People status, 4m has an enviable reputation for staff development – something it seeks to enhance through the work of its training centre.

Axiom group
Axiom has quadrupled turnover to £18m over the past five years, and a brief glance at some of the projects it has been flooring and carpeting suggests that the cash is going to keep pouring in.

The team is currently laying 150,000 m² of carpet tiles at both the London headquarters of the Home Office and the BBC’s headquarters redevelopment in west London, as well as 67,000 m² at Brindleyplace in Birmingham.

Such high-profile clients are doubtless impressed with the integrated nature of Axiom’s supply chain – the firm has an exclusive partnership with screeding and adhesive supplier Henkel, which has led to a unique warranty that covers all aspects of the process.

Twintec industrial flooring
Rugby-based Twintec has produced concrete floors from Korea to Canada, and boasts that it has designed and built well over 1,500,000 m² of jointless industrial flooring since it’s inception in 1980 – always ensuring the most perfect levels of flatness.

Recent projects have included producing a steel-fibre reinforced-concrete pile-supported foundation slab for Quinn Glass at their new plant at Elton, Cheshire, and producing 126,250 m² of internal and external floor slabs at the B&Q distribution centre in Doncaster.

Twintec provides a complete “in-house” package, from design and build to insurance.