It’s that time of year again when tens of thousands of people descend upon Chicago’s Merchandise Mart like zebras to water after a year of commercial design drought: NeoCon 2017.
This will our 4th consecutive year covering NeoCon and with each passing year the show gets a bit easier to navigate which makes it a much more enjoyable experience. With Office Snapshots primarily seeing office design project imagery, I have come to enjoy getting to experience new products first hand and then seeing them begin to show up into the projects on the site over the following 6 – 12 months.
Three of the themes that seemed apparent from last year’s show were versatility, privacy, and domesticity. That is that many of the products introduced were meant to create a varied office environment which improved privacy while making them more comfortable and home-like spaces for employees
You’ll likely see those trends continuing this year in addition to a couple others: modularity, acoustics, and warmth.
Many products are recreating spaces or features which used to be built into offices such as phone booths collaboration spaces. With open offices are everywhere, acoustics have become an important consideration, though they probably ought to have been from the start. We’re also moving away from the hyper-raw materials like cement and metal and moving towards warmer and richer fabrics and materials.
With all that said, we’re looking forward to this year’s show and how you are too. We’ve put together a guide of some of the new products or enhancements we are excited about seeing in person. And to help you in your wanderings, it is separated by floor (3rd, 10th, 11th).
Have a happy NeoCon!