Treading the trends
Treading the trends
Casinos prefer chic, natural hard flooring for hospitality and functional, yet attractive, broadloom carpeting for gambling areas
By Bob Shemeligian
A century ago, casino flooring was nothing more than bare wooden planks. Hence the name: sawdust joints.
In the years following the Second World War, the wooden floors were covered with brightly-colored carpeting with patterns so gaudy and loud, they could almost wake a sleeping hotel guest.
But in the 1990s, as casinos began to evolve into elegant resorts with fine restaurants and chic clubs, flooring became more fashionable, more comfortable and most importantly, more functional and durable.
"We favor Axminster, which is a woven wool blend," said Evan Rubin, director of standards in the design and construction department of Harrah's Entertainment.
Axminster is a broadloom carpet-with stiff backing and a soft, colorful cut pile-first produced in Axminster, Devon, in the mid-1700s. This fine carpeting, which is known for resiliency and fire safety, is still produced in the United Kingdom and shipped in container vessels to many casinos throughout the world.
The Axminster used at Harrah's is usually a blend of 80 percent wool and 20 percent nylon.
"The wool is self-extinguishing, and while we're seeing a gradual transition to non-smoking in many public buildings, we do have smoking, and people sometimes drop their cigarettes. And the wool extinguishes them-and essentially turns the cigarette amber into ash," Rubin said. "If you go with nylon, the material starts to melt and the carpet is ruined."
From crass to class
While wool carpet blends are not a new innovation in casino flooring, carpet styles, designs and colors have changed over the years. One or two generations ago, it was not unusual to see horseshoes, leprechauns or other very colorful and obvious symbols emblazoned into carpet patterns. Today such heavily-themed carpeting is considered pass‚ by properties that opt for a more elegant look.
Sven Van Assche, vice president of design for MGM Mirage, explained most major casino resort corporations have moved away from "Disney-esque themes" that were popular in the early 1990s when the MGM Grand opened with a Wizard of Oz theme, complete with a yellow brick road designed into the carpet.
The problem, Van Assche explained, is that when the theme of the hotel changes, the carpet has to be replaced.
"Today, the architecture and design of resorts is based on style and class" Van Assche said. "It's more elegant, and the carpeting is one of the interior elements that is beginning to reflect that idea."
Harrah's resorts also have replaced heavily-themed carpets with more stylish and generic floor coverings.
"We're moving away from highly literal logo carpeting," Rubin said. "We're seeing more contemporary styling-more so than in the past."
Rubin explained that bold patterns are popular on casino floors today because they tend to hide stains, but designers must stagger various colors so the carpet will maintain its appearance and integrity as it becomes worn from tremendous foot traffic.
"You have to be careful how you select colors," Rubin said. "If you have five shades of brown in one carpet and each successive shade is next to one another, they start to blend, and it tends to ugly out. The designer has to be cognizant of the mix, and perhaps put a dark color between the graduations."
The move toward style and elegance in casino flooring is a reflection of a national trend. Some of the hottest colors in carpet this year, according to the World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) are jade, ruby, persimmon and jasmine.
The natural look
Many new resorts are incorporating hard surface floors in many public areas of the casino, especially the hotel lobby. Again, this is a reflection of a national trend favoring more hard surfaces in residential and commercial construction.
"The hard surface segment of the floor covering continues to grow by leaps and bounds," said Mark Burson, spokesman for the WFCA. "Fifteen years ago, carpet accounted for 80 percent of the market. Today, it's down to 65 percent."
Improvements in hard floor products in recent years have helped fuel the trend. Today, engineered woods are less expensive and more durable. And people love the look and feel of hard surface floors.
"They used to call those old casinos sawdust joints because of those wood floors," Burson said. "Well, today women in Beverly Hills will pay tons of money to get that look. It's more natural."
One corporation that spent a great deal of money to get a more natural look for its latest project was Station Casinos. The Las Vegas-based corporation, headed by Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, spared no expense in adorning its $925 million Red Rock Resort-Casino, located on Las Vegas Valley's western edge, with natural stones and floor colors that reflect the beauty of the nearby Red Rock Canyon.
In the design of the resort, the Friedmutter Group, a Las Vegas-based architectural firm, incorporated stones from around the world, including more than 5,000 feet of custom onyx applications in many public areas of the casino. In the gaming area, where carpeting was used, the design on the broadloom reflects the striations of the nearby canyon.
Other casino corporations are also spending more on hardwood surfaces.
"We use tons of natural stone, polished granite and marble in our hotel and elevator lobbies and primary areas throughout our resorts," said Rubin of Harrah's Entertainment. "The granite could be travertine or terrazzo. It depends on the design. For instance, the designer might plan a rotunda type of interior."
Few hotel-casino patrons who walk along a beautiful stone floor have any idea of the cost of setting such a stunning, polished surface. The use of natural stones is incredibly expensive.
"The cost ranges from $10 to $500 a square foot, depending on what you want to do," Rubin explained.
Natural stone floors have been in existence since the earliest days of the Roman Empire. While the installation of these floors have always been very expensive and very labor intensive, modern technology has helped make this type of flooring more suitable for casino corporations searching for a natural and aesthetic feel to hotel lobbies.
The materials for a natural stone floor are quarried and then cut to fit by a water jet at a contractor shop. Then each stone is polished, numbered and carefully packed for shipment to the casino.
"A water jet uses a very fine stream of water to cut the stone without cracking it," Rubin explained. "They use a lighter version of these jets to clean your teeth. But the device used to cut stone is very powerful and very expensive."
Form plus function
In the gaming area, broadloom is still preferable to hard surfaces for a number of reasons. The carpet absorbs sound, and because of high traffic and the placement and repositioning of heavy slot machines, it's better to use broadloom rather than a hard surface that will be partially hidden by the machines and scratched when the machines are moved.
In addition, most resorts run conduits under the gaming area to hide coaxial cables and electrical wires.
Kathy Buyarski, electrified deck systems manager for Cordeck Building Solutions, said sub-floor cable tunnels and electrical raceways offer a solution to a major challenge faced by casino corporations today: the placement of miles of wire and cable out of sight from visitors, but easily accessible to hotel workers.
To run cable tunnels under the first floor of a casino that is set upon a concrete slab, workers must use a two-pour system. First, the main slab is poured. The tunnels and raceways are set atop the slab, and then the secondary slab is poured around them. Tunnels that run under second-story floors run through the steel frame.
"The beauty of this system is it gives the owner the ability to have an evergreen building," Buyarski said. "All the wiring and cables are hidden. Yet, they're easily accessible."
Traditionally, these tunnels are covered by carpeting rather than hard surfaces. The reason is simple. It's much easier to replace carpet than stone or tile.
Milliken Carpets of La Grange, Ga., markets a modular carpet tile product for use over floor tunnels and electrical raceways.
"Casinos are a unique animal," said Tracy Francis, marketing manager for Milliken Carpets. "There's a lot of traffic, lots of heavy rolling carts and people spill stuff and drop cigarettes all the time."
Francis said modular tiles are growing in popularity in tribal gaming operations and in riverboat casinos because they're very easy to replace.
"This type of carpeting looks like broadloom and the tiles stay down with a releasable adhesive," Francis explained. "They're very easy to work with, and the seams are camouflaged."
Sometimes casino carpeting stains can be cleaned, and several companies offer products to help do the job quickly and efficiently. One of them is The Earlex Group, a United Kingdom-based corporation, with offices in the United States, that produces top quality casino cleaning products. One of them is the Ewbank MultiSweep, designed to do fast clean up of small messes and debris.
"It's an ideal tool for a porter-great for quick clean ups," said Nicole Palermo, company spokeswoman.
Casinos prefer chic, natural hard flooring for hospitality and functional, yet attractive, broadloom carpeting for gambling areas
By Bob Shemeligian
A century ago, casino flooring was nothing more than bare wooden planks. Hence the name: sawdust joints.
In the years following the Second World War, the wooden floors were covered with brightly-colored carpeting with patterns so gaudy and loud, they could almost wake a sleeping hotel guest.
But in the 1990s, as casinos began to evolve into elegant resorts with fine restaurants and chic clubs, flooring became more fashionable, more comfortable and most importantly, more functional and durable.
"We favor Axminster, which is a woven wool blend," said Evan Rubin, director of standards in the design and construction department of Harrah's Entertainment.
Axminster is a broadloom carpet-with stiff backing and a soft, colorful cut pile-first produced in Axminster, Devon, in the mid-1700s. This fine carpeting, which is known for resiliency and fire safety, is still produced in the United Kingdom and shipped in container vessels to many casinos throughout the world.
The Axminster used at Harrah's is usually a blend of 80 percent wool and 20 percent nylon.
"The wool is self-extinguishing, and while we're seeing a gradual transition to non-smoking in many public buildings, we do have smoking, and people sometimes drop their cigarettes. And the wool extinguishes them-and essentially turns the cigarette amber into ash," Rubin said. "If you go with nylon, the material starts to melt and the carpet is ruined."
From crass to class
While wool carpet blends are not a new innovation in casino flooring, carpet styles, designs and colors have changed over the years. One or two generations ago, it was not unusual to see horseshoes, leprechauns or other very colorful and obvious symbols emblazoned into carpet patterns. Today such heavily-themed carpeting is considered pass‚ by properties that opt for a more elegant look.
Sven Van Assche, vice president of design for MGM Mirage, explained most major casino resort corporations have moved away from "Disney-esque themes" that were popular in the early 1990s when the MGM Grand opened with a Wizard of Oz theme, complete with a yellow brick road designed into the carpet.
The problem, Van Assche explained, is that when the theme of the hotel changes, the carpet has to be replaced.
"Today, the architecture and design of resorts is based on style and class" Van Assche said. "It's more elegant, and the carpeting is one of the interior elements that is beginning to reflect that idea."
Harrah's resorts also have replaced heavily-themed carpets with more stylish and generic floor coverings.
"We're moving away from highly literal logo carpeting," Rubin said. "We're seeing more contemporary styling-more so than in the past."
Rubin explained that bold patterns are popular on casino floors today because they tend to hide stains, but designers must stagger various colors so the carpet will maintain its appearance and integrity as it becomes worn from tremendous foot traffic.
"You have to be careful how you select colors," Rubin said. "If you have five shades of brown in one carpet and each successive shade is next to one another, they start to blend, and it tends to ugly out. The designer has to be cognizant of the mix, and perhaps put a dark color between the graduations."
The move toward style and elegance in casino flooring is a reflection of a national trend. Some of the hottest colors in carpet this year, according to the World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) are jade, ruby, persimmon and jasmine.
The natural look
Many new resorts are incorporating hard surface floors in many public areas of the casino, especially the hotel lobby. Again, this is a reflection of a national trend favoring more hard surfaces in residential and commercial construction.
"The hard surface segment of the floor covering continues to grow by leaps and bounds," said Mark Burson, spokesman for the WFCA. "Fifteen years ago, carpet accounted for 80 percent of the market. Today, it's down to 65 percent."
Improvements in hard floor products in recent years have helped fuel the trend. Today, engineered woods are less expensive and more durable. And people love the look and feel of hard surface floors.
"They used to call those old casinos sawdust joints because of those wood floors," Burson said. "Well, today women in Beverly Hills will pay tons of money to get that look. It's more natural."
One corporation that spent a great deal of money to get a more natural look for its latest project was Station Casinos. The Las Vegas-based corporation, headed by Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, spared no expense in adorning its $925 million Red Rock Resort-Casino, located on Las Vegas Valley's western edge, with natural stones and floor colors that reflect the beauty of the nearby Red Rock Canyon.
In the design of the resort, the Friedmutter Group, a Las Vegas-based architectural firm, incorporated stones from around the world, including more than 5,000 feet of custom onyx applications in many public areas of the casino. In the gaming area, where carpeting was used, the design on the broadloom reflects the striations of the nearby canyon.
Other casino corporations are also spending more on hardwood surfaces.
"We use tons of natural stone, polished granite and marble in our hotel and elevator lobbies and primary areas throughout our resorts," said Rubin of Harrah's Entertainment. "The granite could be travertine or terrazzo. It depends on the design. For instance, the designer might plan a rotunda type of interior."
Few hotel-casino patrons who walk along a beautiful stone floor have any idea of the cost of setting such a stunning, polished surface. The use of natural stones is incredibly expensive.
"The cost ranges from $10 to $500 a square foot, depending on what you want to do," Rubin explained.
Natural stone floors have been in existence since the earliest days of the Roman Empire. While the installation of these floors have always been very expensive and very labor intensive, modern technology has helped make this type of flooring more suitable for casino corporations searching for a natural and aesthetic feel to hotel lobbies.
The materials for a natural stone floor are quarried and then cut to fit by a water jet at a contractor shop. Then each stone is polished, numbered and carefully packed for shipment to the casino.
"A water jet uses a very fine stream of water to cut the stone without cracking it," Rubin explained. "They use a lighter version of these jets to clean your teeth. But the device used to cut stone is very powerful and very expensive."
Form plus function
In the gaming area, broadloom is still preferable to hard surfaces for a number of reasons. The carpet absorbs sound, and because of high traffic and the placement and repositioning of heavy slot machines, it's better to use broadloom rather than a hard surface that will be partially hidden by the machines and scratched when the machines are moved.
In addition, most resorts run conduits under the gaming area to hide coaxial cables and electrical wires.
Kathy Buyarski, electrified deck systems manager for Cordeck Building Solutions, said sub-floor cable tunnels and electrical raceways offer a solution to a major challenge faced by casino corporations today: the placement of miles of wire and cable out of sight from visitors, but easily accessible to hotel workers.
To run cable tunnels under the first floor of a casino that is set upon a concrete slab, workers must use a two-pour system. First, the main slab is poured. The tunnels and raceways are set atop the slab, and then the secondary slab is poured around them. Tunnels that run under second-story floors run through the steel frame.
"The beauty of this system is it gives the owner the ability to have an evergreen building," Buyarski said. "All the wiring and cables are hidden. Yet, they're easily accessible."
Traditionally, these tunnels are covered by carpeting rather than hard surfaces. The reason is simple. It's much easier to replace carpet than stone or tile.
Milliken Carpets of La Grange, Ga., markets a modular carpet tile product for use over floor tunnels and electrical raceways.
"Casinos are a unique animal," said Tracy Francis, marketing manager for Milliken Carpets. "There's a lot of traffic, lots of heavy rolling carts and people spill stuff and drop cigarettes all the time."
Francis said modular tiles are growing in popularity in tribal gaming operations and in riverboat casinos because they're very easy to replace.
"This type of carpeting looks like broadloom and the tiles stay down with a releasable adhesive," Francis explained. "They're very easy to work with, and the seams are camouflaged."
Sometimes casino carpeting stains can be cleaned, and several companies offer products to help do the job quickly and efficiently. One of them is The Earlex Group, a United Kingdom-based corporation, with offices in the United States, that produces top quality casino cleaning products. One of them is the Ewbank MultiSweep, designed to do fast clean up of small messes and debris.
"It's an ideal tool for a porter-great for quick clean ups," said Nicole Palermo, company spokeswoman.
