Installation: Second Matter, a unique collaboration between Quick-Step, architect Maximiliaan Schevenhels and Designregio Kortrijk
During Flanders Flooring Days – the four-day high-end trade event that brings together the global flooring community – Quick-Step is highlighting its long-term commitment to circularity by showcasing the industrial craftsmanship behind recycling.
This ambition is being realised through a unique collaboration with architect Maximiliaan Schevenhels and designer Marion De Bie, two promising design talents matched with Quick-Step by Designregio Kortrijk.
The result is Second Matter, an artistic installation that does not seek to explain recycling step by step, but rather reveals what normally remains hidden: the discipline, control and knowledge required to transform materials on an industrial scale. In this way, it makes it clear that at Quick-Step, sustainability is built on expertise, not just words.
Maximiliaan Schevenhels approaches recycling not as a fixed system, but as a state of constant transformation. Second Matter unfolds across two long structures, each five metres in length, entirely developed by Maximiliaan, which translate the recycling of vinyl and laminate into a spatial sequence through which visitors move.
The installation does not explain the process. It lays it bare. Moments of transformation appear as shifts in material behaviour, rather than as technical steps. Matter breaks open, softens and reshapes itself. An aluminium frame responds to this. It tightens, offers resistance or intensifies, and guides the process without fully controlling it.
Material and structure remain locked in a continuous dialogue. What emerges is not a machine, but a controlled tension between force and precision. A physical interpretation of how recycling, when mastered on an industrial scale, evolves into craftsmanship.
From installation to a sustainability vision
Quick-Step is a Belgian flooring brand, renowned for innovative, attractive and sustainable flooring solutions in laminate, vinyl and wood. Sustainability is not a separate objective, but an integral part of how Quick-Step develops, manufactures and continuously improves its floors.
For Quick-Step, sustainability does not begin at the end of a product’s life cycle, but right at the start. When a floor eventually reaches the end of its first life, Quick-Step continues to take responsibility. Through reuse and advanced recycling, materials are given a new purpose. Second Matter brings this vision to life and presents sustainability not as a single action, but as an ongoing commitment, from initial installation to future reuse.
At Quick Step, sustainability isn’t about a single flagship product. It’s embedded in everything we do, because real change only happens at scale. By combining scientific research, data-driven decisions and measurable results, we’re turning recycling into an industrial craft that truly makes a difference.
In the vinyl flooring sector, Quick-Step demonstrates its commitment to large-scale recycling through its global Recover programme, which collects old flooring and processes it into new raw materials and, ultimately, new flooring.
In laminate flooring, recycling plays a crucial role in preparing for the future. Thanks to state-of-the-art recycling technology, Quick-Step is tackling this challenge on an industrial scale. Quick-Step is the first flooring manufacturer in the world to produce recyclable laminate, thereby raising the entire sector to a higher level.
A platform for further dialogue
Second Matter is constructed entirely from aluminium and designed as a modular system. The installation is conceived as a travelling concept that, following Flanders Flooring Days, will also be showcased at other trade fairs and events. The first of these will be the WONDER Creativity Festival organised by Designregio Kortrijk, which will take place from 27 October to 8 November 2026 in Kortrijk, a UNESCO City of Design. In this way, Quick-Step continues to actively drive the conversation on circularity, innovation and responsibility within the flooring sector.
Designregio Kortrijk
Designregio Kortrijk connects creative talent with ambitious companies and organisations to envision, design and create a better future. Together with our founding partners Voka West Flanders, Kortrijk Xpo, Howest, the City of Kortrijk, Intercommunale Leiedal and Imog, we initiate, coordinate and organise impactful projects centred on the themes of sustainability and circularity, digitalisation, social innovation, inspiration and networking. One of the most important projects is the WONDER Creativity Festival, which attracts more than 18,000 visitors every year.
Designers' biographies
Maximiliaan Schevenhels (geb. 1999, Sint-Niklaas) is a Ghent-based designer with a background in architecture. His work encompasses spatial design, scenography and objects, combining a strong structural approach with a sensitivity to the behaviour of materials and the design process. In addition to his independent practice, he is also involved in collaborative projects.
Marion De Bie (°1997, Gent) is a graphic designer and strategic thinker. Her practice explores the interaction between systems and rule-breaking playfulness through research and the design of typefaces, publications, and identity and brand designs. She is a designer and art director with a strong commitment to supporting projects that combine applied art and science, research, language, spatial design, scenography and architecture.
Flanders Flooring Days 18-21.05.26
Flanders Flooring Days has quickly built a solid reputation as a highly specialised, high-end trade event with an exclusive focus on top-quality European products. For four days, the global flooring community comes together on the main exhibition floor at Kortrijk Xpo, as well as in the on-site showrooms and production facilities. This unique combination creates the perfect synergy between inspiration, interaction and business opportunities. Flanders Flooring Days is the place where the global community shapes the future of flooring.
Contact
For further images and video footage, please contact Lisa Declercq, Designregio Kortrijk, lisa@designregio-kortrijk.be, 056 51 91 83
Exhibition text
Second Matter
We live in a time where materials are discarded too quickly.
What took energy, knowledge and craft to create
is too often treated as temporary.
At Quick‑Step, this logic is challenged.
Second Matter begins where the first life of a floor ends.
Vinyl and laminate don’t disappear, they enter a recycling process
developed and industrialized by Quick‑Step.
Broken down, separated, refined and rebuilt
into materials ready for a new floor.
A process where advanced technology
and long‑term expertise come together
as a form of industrial craft.
Second Matter reveals recycling not as a distant technical system,
but as a continuous material journey
one that Quick‑Step actively shapes, improves and scales.
Quick‑Step
Always a step ahead
Lisa Declercq
Lisa is responsible for the offline and online visibility and communication of Designregio Kortrijk. She is always looking for the next big thing in young design talent and builds up the creative community of the organisation.
