November 27, 2007
Innovation Made Visible at Gore Capability Center

New Showroom Designed by Carbone Smolan Agency Helps W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. Celebrate 50 Years of Creativity

New York, NY, November 27, 2007 – Many of W.L. Gore & Associate's (Gore) products are invisible to the naked eye, which made creating a showroom featuring them, challenging. Gore makes essential ingredient products with PTFE, a proprietary, fluorocarbon polymer, for a wide range of industries from medical to military to leisure. GORE-TEX outerwear and Glide dental floss are two of Gore's best-known brands. Other applications are often concealed within, even becoming a part of the human body, as with Gore's medical products.

To communicate and celebrate Gore's innovative achievements to an audience of existing and potential customers, the media and more, it turned to the Carbone Smolan Agency (CSA), a Manhattan based design and branding firm. CSA led the design and development of Gore's new 6,000 square foot marketplace, The Gore Capability Center.

Creation of the new Center tied into Gore's renovation of its Barksdale facility, located at the company's Delaware headquarters. Ideo, a California based design firm and Homsey Architects of Wilmington, Delaware originated the strategic plan and developed the architectural facet of the project. "Our role began at the front door," explained Ken Carbone, Founding Partner, Chief Creative Director, CSA. "Working closely with the architectural firm and all involved in the renovation helped us initiate and involve our design into the total vision of the facility, we needed to achieve aesthetic integration, with architecture and exhibit joining to present one continuous idea and unified brand personality."

The project goal was two-fold: showcase Gore's 50 years of PTFE product innovation, and help the company relay complex, largely abstract scientific information in a manner compelling and accessible for all to view. "The intent was not only to inform but to impress," explains Carbone. "We had a clear vision for achieving high impact messaging in a way that would engage the target audience while preserving the scientific content. CSA needed to translate the science within the products into a visible and understandable expression of the Gore brand."

As the project's designers, CSA worked closely with the Gore team, Homsey Architects and Showman Fabricators for a seamless approach. "From the very beginning, the project encompassed a great working collaboration among all involved," says Carbone.

Unleashing creativity at the door, visitors are welcomed in a lobby trimmed with message banners promoting Core's core values - waterline, commitment, freedom and fairness. Three pedestals invite visitors into the space by highlighting the origins of PTFE. The progression of PTFE processing is displayed with a large, glowing green crystal, a conical mound of PTFE fine powder, and a flowing membrane of expanded PTFE, all dramatically framed by an artistic, lighted glass rendering of an electron microscope image of expanded PTFE molecule at 40,000 times actual size.

CSA structured the vision into a six-part story: introduction to PTFE; four areas of science involving the ingredient - biological, chemical, electromagnetic and physical; and, lastly, a section highlighting Gore’s analytical capabilities. The six-point hexagonal plan became a core element in the physical design. The exhibit center features the Gore product, Tenara, used for architectural applications, as representative of the PTFE molecule and its complex 3-D characteristics. The fiber, pigmented in Gore's signature red color, is dramatically woven into a web-like form, suspended as a mobile over the center of the exhibit. An eighteen-foot monolithic tower flanked by three product information panels anchors each of the six exhibit spaces.

Backlit exhibits, photos and views of the various forms of PTFE including fibers, tubes, tapes and membranes, provide visual impact. Highlights include an acoustic guitar strung with Gore Elixir strings and a human size "visible man" replete with Gore medical devices implanted throughout." We designed the scale to be dramatic and muscular in order to have impact on what was a cavernous, raw space…as many of the Gore products are so small in scale, the design had to be the larger impressive statement that would essentially put these delicate products on a substantial pedestal," explained Carbone.

"The design and scope of the completed Capability Center exceeded our expectations," says Gene Castellano, Project Director of W.L. Gore & Associates. "CSA successfully translated our mission and 50 years of innovation into a larger than life, visual and interactive creation that will inspire and motivate all who experience it." Response from Gore associates and customers has been extremely positive.

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Carbone Smolan Agency offers a comprehensive set of strategic and creative services designed to build a singular brand voice across all media. Based in New York, the firm has built an international reputation creating outstanding programs for world-class clients, including Morgan Stanley, Tiffany & Co., the W Hotel Group, Herman Miller, PBS, Christie’s, Musée du Louvre, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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