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After a brief hiatus, NeoCon returned with its 2022 edition as a launchpad for the latest trends in design and innovation. In a three-day extensive exposition held from 13th to 15th June 2022 at the MART in Chicago, Illinois, NeoCon offered an assorted display of interior solutions and artistic installations for hospitality, retail, healthcare, education and government spaces. Since its founding in 1969, NeoCon has been an important platform for promoting the commercial interiors industry. For more than five decades, it has been displaying objects related to interior design, but has also been a platform for robust educational interactions.
As an important annual event for the design industry, NeoCon brought together thousands of manufacturers, dealers, architects, designers, end-users, design organisations and the media from across the globe to impart and contract the knowledge, experiences and learnings owing to the advancements in shaping the built environment of the future. The exposition encompassed a whopping one million square feet of space for showcasing thousands of new products and collections by established and emerging studios and brands. It also covered a wide banner of exclusive conferences, discussions, presentations, virtual sessions, dynamic activations, award programs and multiple events divided by trends but united by a common platform – design.
As an authoritative establishment in the world of design and technology, NeoCon encouraged multitudes of exhibitions as a response to the needs of the ever-developing market, addressing the drifts in not just the existing subjects such as sustainability, innovation and technology but also new and upcoming subsidiaries in design including Neurodiversity, biophilia and wellness, hotelification and even the rise in ‘Phygital’ spaces that are spaces where the physical and the digital world come together in a blended collaboration over design such as the metaverse.
In a creative runway for 2022, NeoCon displayed the works of different studios and brands including the iconic furniture brand Hellar, Logicdata, Turf Design, Enwork, Loftwall, Andreu World’s collaborative pieces by prolific designers including Alfredo Häberli, Benjamin Hubert, Patricia Urquiola, and Philippe Starck. Many different exhibitors also launched products that were a reflection of the growing demands of the changing office environment including Steelcase’s Flex Perch Stool and Flex Personal Spaces, Davis Furniture’s collaboration with the German design duo Jehs+ Laub for their Binh planter system and many more. The designs stood out of the bag of exhibits in a unique adaptation of design elements adhering to mental and health wellness as well as sustainability.
NeoCon, also held compelling keynote presentations on various design and art-related topics with iconic speakers including the artist Nick Cave, Bob Faust- Founder, principal and creative director of the art and design studio Faust, design artist and educator Bruce Mau and many more. All of the presentations hit pivotal notes in discussion circling topics such as sustainability, digitalisation of the design world, growing relevance of NFTs in design, and the role of physical and mental health in design amongst an impressive roster of vital and pressing subjects.
Best of NeoCon Awards, a hallmark of the design fair (https://www.stirworld.com/tags-design-fair) since 1990, honoured 99 underrepresented designers in different categories, drawing scores of groundbreaking product submissions from leading designers and manufacturers. After an intensive evaluation by an esteemed panel of influential architects and designers, the Best of the Competition Award was given to the renowned furniture brand Halcon for its Helm table.
NeoCon has always aimed at being an important intervention and with its 2022 edition, it has established solid grounds on the importance of trade shows by being a platform that not only exhibits the works of different designers but also encourages young talent to flourish in the world of design.
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