Tricycle Inc.

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Tricycle Inc is a sustainable design company founded in 2002 to serve the creative product lifecycle of the interior design and architecture professions and their suppliers. According to Tricycle co-founder Michael Hendrix, "…sustainable design is a new category in the professional world, in which a design company is defined not by its output but by its objectives."¹

The Company primarily works with carpet manufacturers such as Shaw Industries, Interface Inc. and Mohawk Industries to reduce the waste involved in developing products and getting them to market. The company's headquarters are in Chattanooga, Tennessee with an R&D center in Leeds, England.

1 Services
2 Products
3 Activities
4 Recognition & Awards
5 External links
6 Notes

[edit] Services

Tricycle has a service called the SIM Factory that sets up carpet mill products in a "virtual mill" and distributes them as simulations to interior designers and architects. The SIM Factory also produces custom room scenes with the virtual products placed into them.

Tricycle has a marketing services group that provides graphic design and web development for customers with SIM programs. Work includes trade show design, sample book design, web site ordering portals, product and program identity and brand development. According to their web site [1], they have won creative awards from The One Show, Type Director's Club, Communication Arts and the International Interior Design Association.

[edit] Products

SIM from Tricycle® carpet simulation

SIM from Tricycle® digitally models carpet for manufacturers when prototyping new designs and for architects and designers when reviewing samples in the early stages of a project. SIM produces color-accurate renderings by capturing the yarn color under a specific light source and includes a representation of the design's pattern by simulating the carpet machine manufacturing. The samples are recyclable into new paper products and available on 100% post consumer waste paper. Produced on-demand, there is no excess inventory, and wait times for designers are reduced to only 24 hours. Tricycle operates this service as the SIM+Factory.

Apso® is Tricycle's CAD software brand. The carpet design suite is called Jet Set. There are also a number of fabric design applications such as Dobby Designer.

[edit] Activities

In 2006, Tricycle designed, edited and published REVERB, an "anthology of the moment" about sustainability in the interiors industry, with articles written by eco-consultants, commercial interior designers and editors of industry magazines. Sponsorships allow half of the book's sales go to support Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that enlists the help of architects and designers in areas devastated by natural disasters and AIDS.

REVERB's writers are Holley Henderson, Chair of LEED for Commercial Interiors, Mairi Beautyman of Interior Design magazine and Treehugger.com, Melissa Mizell of Gensler, a report from a Saturday Education Seminar at the Color Marketing Group's Spring international meeting, MK Timme of InteriorDesign.net, Katie Weeks of Contract Magazine, Bill Grant of Grant Design Collaborative and current president of AIGA, Nadav Malin of Environmental Building News, Carlie Bullock-Jones of Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates Architects, and Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity.

[edit] Recognition & Awards

Tricycle and its core digital modeling/simulation technology, SIM from Tricycle®, have been recognized internationally for leadership in green design through the Green Apple Award and Green Heroes Award (UK) for environmental best practices in the United States; an American Institute of Architects, CoreNet and International Interior Design Association Special Recognition for Global Sustainable Leadership; an INDEX:2005 shortlist nomination for Design to Improve Life (Denmark); a 2006 nomination for a National Design Award for Corporate Achievement from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; and a 2006 Gold IDEA award from the Industrial Designers Society of America and Business Week for EcoDesign.