Walls of Ginkgo leaves and bamboo. Curved lighting fixtures made with recycled glass. A door laced with beaded copper mesh woven by AIDS-impacted women in Africa for a fair wage. Since 2002, 3form Inc. has impressed the architecture and design industry with its unique building materials -- and its commitment to social and environmental responsibility.
Walls of Ginkgo leaves and bamboo. Curved lighting fixtures made with recycled glass. A door laced with beaded copper mesh woven by AIDS-impacted women in Africa for a fair wage.
Since 2002, 3form Inc. has impressed the architecture and design industry with its unique building materials -- and its commitment to social and environmental responsibility.
The Salt Lake City company makes architectural panels, which can be left flat or bent into curved shapes, by encapsulating an "image layer," such as pink fabric, crushed post-consumer glass, digital photographs or iridescent sea shells, between two layers of EcoResin made with 40 percent recycled content. The outside of the panel can be left smooth or imprinted with texture. Customers pick from 70 colors, more than 100 image layers, eight gauges and 40 textures.
"It allows infinite possibilities from a design standpoint," says Talley Goodson, chief executive and president of 3form.
Architects like that the product can be engineered exactly to their specifications. Green builders like that the resin panels bank points in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system. The U.S. Green Building Council, which established the LEED program, awards buildings standard, silver, gold or platinum certification based on the number of points earned.
In San Francisco, Natural Resources Defense Council used 3form panels in the design of its new office, which earned a LEED gold rating. The nonprofit environmental group used clear, 3form panels with a thatch interlayer to create a staircase railing and the reception desk.
"It's an attractive piece of 'green' eye candy," says NRDC spokesman Craig Noble. "We've gotten a lot of very positive feedback from people who have visited the office."
And Noble says the product fit the group's nonprofit budget. With a standard size of four feet by eight feet, the panels range in price from $150 to $1500, depending on how they are made.
In Utah, 3form's panels have been used as the bar front in Market Street Broiler, shower doors at Xcel Spa & Fitness and office dividers at Richter7. Nationally, 3form panels create a backlit ceiling in the New York office of Associated Press, glowing red stairs in Blush, a San Francisco-area night club, and the undulating, orange wall of Treasure Island Hotel's Tangerine Bar that shines on the Las Vegas strip.
Currently, 3form is engineering acoustic panels for a performance hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. When the project is done, the panels will form a 20-foot-tall, translucent wall with a real wood veneer interlayer, Goodson says.
"We were looking for an architectural effect that hadn't been done in the marketplace before. We needed a partner who understood what we wanted to do and could create it," says Ben Gilmartin, an architect with New York-based firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which is handling the renovation of the Lincoln Center. "What is unique about (3form) is they actually have an architectural division where they have architects on staff who understand what we're trying to do and why."
Prestigious projects such as the Lincoln Center have helped propel 3form's growth, but its chief executive, a Salt Lake City native, deserves a good measure of credit for the company's success.
After 15 years building up businesses in Houston, Pittsburgh, Singapore and South Africa, Goodson returned to his hometown in 2002 to work with his father. Ray Goodson started Simtec in 1991 to develop an environmentally-friendly resin panel but had limited success marketing it. Simtec was selling the panels to another company that marketed the products under its brand.
Talley Goodson changed Simtec's name to 3form to symbolize three key design elements, form, function and light. He lured outside investors, although Goodson and his father are still the largest shareholders. And the company began selling directly to the architecture and design market.
The results are impressive. In 2002, 3form's revenue was $3 million. Last year, it reached $17 million. And this year Goodson expects to see $27 million in sales. The company employs 185 people at its Salt Lake headquarters and manufacturing plant and an additional 250 people nationwide. The company also has showrooms in New York and Chicago and an office in San Francisco.
But Goodson is more proud of the company's ethics than its economics. Environmental and social responsibility is part of 3form's design philosophy, and Goodson says his job title, CEO, stands for chief environmental officer. "Ten or 20 years from now there won't be any great companies that aren't great stewards of the environment," Goodson says. Sustainability -- producing goods without depleting natural resources faster than they can be replenished -- is vital to the longevity of any business, he says. The EcoResin panels are recyclable and do not emit toxic chemicals when burned. Although the panels' 40 percent recycled content is already noteworthy, the company is developing a 100 percent recycled product.
The company has searched the globe for materials crafted or collected by indigenous groups in developing countries. For example, Ithemba panels encapsulate copper wire and glass beads crocheted together by women in Africa who are affected by HIV or AIDS. They are guaranteed a fair wage through Global Exchange, an international human rights organization that supports local economies. In Chia, Columbia, members of the Wanana tribe weave a laso pattern from sisal fiber and collect coconut palm husks to be embedded in 3form panels.
"The product itself at 3form has been well into the pipeline of sustainable products for a period of time," says Ivan Weber, co-chair of U.S. Green Building Council-Utah and principal of Weber Sustainability Consulting. "But, to me, the more meaningful thing is knowing [the product] is backed by a company with a commitment to sustainability that is visible the second you walk through the door."
Weber spoke to 3form employees during the company's "Green Week" in April, which Goodson created to boost the company's environmental commitment. Goodson rode his bike to work and encouraged his employees to ride their bikes, carpool or take public transportation.
Departments created initiatives to cut office-paper use by half in one year, replace cleaning supplies with environmentally-friendly products and increase recycling of plastic, aluminum, cardboard and paper.
"True sustainability, in some ways, is an unattainable goal. To be truly sustainable means you don't consume any resources that you don't replace," Goodson says. "All of the things we do [at 3form] have some impact. Our goal is to minimize that footprint."
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
