Posted by Paul Petrunia, Archinect

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the NeoCon World Trade Fair at the gigantic Merchandise Mart in Chicago, home to the event for the last 42 years. If you aren’t already familiar with NeoCon, it’s the largest design expo and conference in North America, attracting around 40,000 architects and designers each year.

This year represented an important milestone in NeoCon’s history, as they took the leap of digitizing their data and event information through a partnership with NYC-based online product management start-up DesignerPages.com. As someone who spends a large portion of my time online, using and building websites, I found this partnership fascinating and brilliant, yet also crucial, and surprisingly pioneering. NeoCon’s new model allows it’s guests, designers, exhibitors, press, and fans to become more engaged in the experience, allowing the information to be re-visualized and distributed among a variety of channels. Read more

Posted by Facilities Management

“The RoomWizard by Steelcase, a next-generation scheduling device, was honored with a Gold Award in The Best of NeoCon competition in the Workplace Technologies category.

RoomWizard connects people with the spaces they need to be more productive, explains Steelcase. It has been upgraded, beginning with an intuitive touch-screen display that greets users and instantly lets them know the availability of a space. Furthermore, RoomWizard installs simply, is easy to use, and can be accessed remotely via laptop or mobile phone, allowing users to see what rooms are available and who is in the room. As a result, scheduling conflicts are eliminated and impromptu meetings are more easily supported.” Read more

Posted by Facilities Management

“Haworth’s Enclose Moveable Walls have the look and acoustical performance of conventional construction, yet they adapt easily to meet evolving needs, says Haworth. Enclose Moveable Walls won Gold in The Best of NeoCon product competition held during NeoCon World’s Trade Fair at The Merchandise Mart, Chicago, in June.

Enclose Moveable Walls merge seamlessly with existing building architecture and are offered in glass, metal, laminate, wood, or wallcoverings to suit many environments. The modular wall panels are size-compatible to the architectural grid of a building. Any wall panel can be moved independently of the wall panels on either side, making it faster, easier, and more cost effective. Agile panels with frames can be demounted, warehoused, and relocated as a unit.” Read more

Posted by Facilities Management

“Steelcase Inc. a global office environments manufacturer, showcased new seating solutions including node for the education market, at the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair at The Merchandise Mart, Chicago.

Node won an Innovation award in The Best of NeoCon competition.

With an increased focus on digital tools and a more diverse student population, group work is essential to the modern classroom, says Steelcase. The company’s new educational chair, node, caters to this mode of learning so classrooms can catch up to the technology students are already using, while also enhancing the learning experience.” Read more

Posted by Sonja Hall, 3rings

“As designers, architects and enthusiasts we’ll gladly confess to adoring diverse types of nice furniture. One thing we are less likely to admit is our gratitude to designers who come up with furniture that is easy to lift, stack, and put out of sight. Naturally, our tendency in the past was to think of the common folding chair as something we bring out only when there is the need, definitely not when we’re trying to impress. But in the past decade or so, much less squeaky options have sprung into the design scene. Take for instance the Volant™ HL3 by Falcon that has been creating colorful waves at the NeoCon last week.” Read more

Posted by Dave, Contemporist

“At the 2010 NeoCon show in Chicago, the Los Angeles-based Atlas Carpet Mills exhibited a selection of their latest designs.” Read more

Posted by Keasha Palmer, Herman Miller

“If you didn’t make it to NeoCon this year, you missed something quite surprising and lovely – a stately “green oasis” sitting serenely alongside the truck convoy at the Merchandise Mart. It was a startling break from tradition (major manufacturers always line up their semis at the Mart), and it all started with an idea…that grew…and grew…and grew…” Read more

Posted by Joe Boomgaard and Nathan Peck, MiBiz

“If foot traffic and rising numbers of orders are any indication, West Michigan office furniture manufacturers should see a rosier picture in 2010. As the economy gains momentum, many see pent-up demand fueling growth through the end of the year.

Still, the industry is climbing out of a big hole, after manufacturers saw a 30 percent drop in sales in 2009, bringing revenues to levels last seen in the early 1990s.” Read more

Posted by IIDA Students

“This year at NeoCon, attendees and manufacturers could see and be seen in a whole new light with the launch of MyNeoCon.com. Powered by a young, hip, tech-savvy team from New York, MyNeoCon.com became the first ever personal guide for the show. With the ability to search through exhibitors and products online, 2010 became the first year that attendees had the ability to browse and share products before the show. Easy navigation, user friendly design and suggested products for browsing made the guide interactive and fun. But the fun didn’t stop there. The Designer Pages team recruited what they call “Citizen Bloggers” to help them stream show-related live news about the show in the form of pictures, videos, blogs and tweets from across the web. Their mobile web capabilities allowed the stream of live information to feed throughout several displays in the lobby of The Merchandise Mart. The buzz about the show was electric. And it seemed that everyone wanted in on the action.” Read more

Posted by Joseph Starr, 3rings

“The Hemisphere Pendant Lamp took a somewhat circuitous route to NeoCon10. The beautiful translucent/transparent orb was designed by NYC architectural firm Shelton, Mindel, and Associates; manufactured by Mamaroneck, NY’s Nessen Lighting; and distributed by NeoCon neighbor One Source. That may seem to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen to for one singularly exquisite hanging light, but then Hemisphere seems to have a bit of a dual personality—Hemisphere’s two sides are born of a delicious detail that renders the piece visually striking: the hand blown diffuser is clear on the top and frosted on the bottom. And before you go jumping into cereal metaphors, I’ll just point out that Hemisphere may have a surface duality, but its inner workings consist of more than two sides.” Read more

Posted by Contemporist

“At the 2010 NeoCon show in Chicago, the American furniture manufacturer Coalesse exhibited the new SW_1 collection that has been designed by Scott Wilson of MINIMAL.” Read more

Posted by MoCo Loco

“Joel Berman’s Heat light fixture is made from a sculpted piece of acrylic illuminated by high-intensity LEDs and hung from a stainless steel enclosure. The rippling water look comes from the company’s custom Arrigado texturing process.” Read more