In case you were not able to attend the NeoCon convention this year, let me share with you some of the things that I saw there.
"Haworth" had an outstanding showroom filled with awesome furniture that can be used in offices and classrooms.
Knoll’s and Herman Miller’s showrooms were a good place to visit too. Some of the things that I saw in their showroom and in some of their “me too” competitors included:
• Ergonomically designed chairs. They had lines that were designed with various uses in mind. There were conference room chairs and desk chairs that looked enough alike but different enough to serve unique spacial needs.
• White boards were common too. Some showrooms showed entire walls finished with glossy white laminate surfaces that allowed the officer user to mark upon them with erasable color markers. Another variation of this was a special glossy white paint that can be applied to gypsum board walls that allow for erasable color markers to be used on them.
• Haworth has a good raised floor system that allows for almost any finished panel to be placed in tile like fashion. The finish of these panels could be terrazzo, VCT, stone, wood, or anything else you might want to step on. Raised floor systems allow the office to be wired and ducted below the walking surface. This allows the users to have easier access to the electrical, data, and HVAC systems in case these systems need to be altered during a future renovation of the office.
• There were several wall systems out there too. Every showroom had a slight variation of their design at the corners, base boards, and the way they butt the glass at joints. Some looked better than others. Haworth had one of the better designs.
• Of course, there were some gratuitous “green” designs. One showroom had polished river rocks in some kind of resin flooring system with log type benches and lime green upholstery. It was so “in your face” green that it just looked just manipulative towards anyone they hoped were overzealous about being environmentally conscience. I looked for photos of a particularly annoying showroom that had so much fake green stuff in it, it should have been in a Disney set, but I guess even that vendor was too embarrassed to broadcast photos to everyone.
There were a lot of other things that were there to see and I would be happy to talk with you further to even compare notes about what you might have seen there. Feel free to leave a comment below, email me at info@LaneArchitecture.net or call me at 212-594-2007 to catch up.
-Larry
P.S. Haworth flew me up there to join them at NeoCon and to see their factory in Michigan. Thank you, Haworth for giving me such the red carpet treatment.
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