IF INTERFACE HAS GROWN OVER THE LAST 50 YEARS INTO A NATIONAL LEADER, IT’S BECAUSE THE COMPANY HAS CREATED A CULTURE THAT’S CONDUCIVE TO INNOVATION AND LONGEVITY.
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Today in a succession of cities, countries and climate zones, Interface’s projects are all around us. Under construction just across the street from the company’s downtown Portland headquarters, for example, is a new waterfront Multnomah County courthouse that will be the face of Portland’s skyline for generations and one of the most sustainable buildings in a city already known for them. A thousand miles to the south, the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry—the busiest border crossing in the world—has just been completed, striving for zero energy usage and treating 28 million gallons of water onsite with its own wastewater treatment system. And some three thousand miles to the east, construction is completing
on the American Geophysical Union headquarters in Washington, DC, the first zero-energy commercial renovation in our nation’s capitol; its design innovatively taps into the municipal sewer as a geo-exchange heat sink for the building’s heating and cooling needs. That’s just for starters. Over its half-century, Interface has been continually growing—not just in the number of employees and offices, but in ability and expertise. The past halfcentury has seen an utter transformation of the building industry, particularly as it relates to sustainable architecture. From the beginnings of the movement in the 1960s and ’70s, when America first