A British flooring company is turning a corner of next year’s Clerkenwell Design Week into a quiet counterpoint to the event’s usual buzz.
The Amtico Retreat opens at CDW 2026
Amtico will take over Paxton Locher House for the three-day festival, creating what it calls “a more considered pace” inside one of the design calendar’s busiest gatherings.
The company says the space is designed to let visitors slow down, reset, and engage on their own terms—whether that means touching materials, joining a workshop, or simply stepping away from the crowds.
Inside, interconnected rooms showcase sector-specific installations for workplace, retail, and hospitality settings. Each is styled like a life-sized moodboard, combining Amtico’s flooring with furniture, lighting, and material palettes to demonstrate how pattern, color, and texture work together.
Alongside these displays, hands-on sessions invite visitors to interact directly with the products. Mindful origami workshops, led by Origami Est, offer a tactile break, while “create your own” LVT coaster sessions let attendees produce small, take-home pieces.
One seminar, led by psychologist Dr. Craig Knight, will examine the links between wellbeing, biophilic design, and human-centered spaces. Another, titled “Sex and Work and Rock & Roll,” explores how identity and performance shape workplace culture—and how design can better support the people who use those spaces.
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More informal moments—breakfast briefings, drinks, and live music—are scheduled throughout the week to encourage conversation without the pressure of a trade-show floor.
Flexible flooring on display
While the Retreat emphasizes experience, it also serves as a live catalog. Amtico’s core collections—Spacia, Signature, Form, and Décor—are installed across the space to show how standard designs can be adapted or combined for different environments.
The company says the setup is meant to highlight flexibility, letting designers see how their own ideas might translate into finished floors, from off-the-shelf options to fully bespoke outcomes.
This isn’t the first time a design festival has carved out a slower space inside a larger, louder event. In recent years, similar “pause zones” have appeared at Milan Design Week and NeoCon, often framed as antidotes to sensory overload. What sets the Retreat apart is its focus on materiality—using flooring itself as the anchor for reflection, rather than just a backdrop.
Most of the programming is drop-in, though some workshops and seminars require advance booking through Eventbrite. Drinks will be available daily, with a curated cocktail menu offered during the evening networking session on the final day.
The Amtico Retreat runs May 20–22, 2026, at Paxton Locher House, 8-9 Clerkenwell Green, London.
