Last week at Chicago’s famed Merchandise Mart, more than 50,000 interior designers, architects and specifiers gathered for the 51st annual NeoCon®. This show is touted as “the world’s leading platform and most important event of the year for the commercial design industry.”
Visitors saw for themselves how we hand-selected pieces of hickory (shown on the wall) to develop our new Art Select Reclaimed Hickory design.
In the Karndean Designflooring booth, we showcased how you can “design flooring differently” by displaying our vast array of gluedown, loose lay and rigid core luxury vinyl. New product was shown at multiple points throughout the booth, including large format kiosks, display boards and in our floor. While these areas focused on how design professionals can use our LVT to create engaging floors, our back wall highlighted how we, at Karndean, design flooring differently by showcasing how our product development team hand-selects pieces of intriguing natural materials and uses those as the basis for our original product designs. We presented nearly 50 new products from our spring 2019 collection and paired a selection of them with key color market drivers to demonstrate how you can create on-trend spaces. Looking for more information on upcoming color drivers? Schedule a presentation of our True Colors: North American Color Forecast 2019 and Beyond CEU.
Storm Oak with Determined, Reclaimed Chestnut with Gravity
Themes from the Show Floor
NeoCon is where many brands unveil their latest innovations and where commercial design trends are set for the following year. We took advantage of the opportunity to explore some of these upcoming market trends, including:
Shades of Green
While we noticed greens at last year’s NeoCon, this year it seemed to be everywhere. From upholstery to wallcoverings, a wide spectrum of green hues could be seen on the show floor. This trend was heavily dominated by green-yellow tones; although lush greens were also present, especially when exhibitors utilized biophilic design.
Privacy in Open Layouts
With open layouts now the norm in corporate settings, employees find themselves searching for moments of privacy or a quiet workspace. High-backed furniture creates visual privacy, booths allow for one-on-one conversation or casual meeting spaces, and pods provide soundproof spaces in which employees can make private phone calls and work without interruption. Based on the offerings seen at NeoCon, regardless of the level of privacy needed, there seems to be a stylish solution.
Inspired Acoustics
From acoustically friendly panels to decorative wall art, many new products at NeoCon aimed to reduce noise transfer. Perhaps some of this increased emphasis is due to the previously mentioned need for privacy in open workspaces – for example, the panels attached to Dauphin furniture shown in the previous section offer both visual privacy and help to absorb sound. However, other products were designed specifically with acoustic benefits in mind, like BuzziSpace’s BuzziDome pendant light.
For multi-rise projects where you wish to reduce noise transfer to the level below, we recommend specifying flooring from our loose lay and rigid core product ranges, which can reduce transfer by up to 22dB.
Will these trends be making an impact on your future projects? Let us know and share your favorite NeoCon sightings with us on social media!