The Architectural Stone & Tile Pavilion

Market Suites, 8th Floor

Providing a destination within NeoCon where industry professionals can discover the newest styles, trends and technological innovations in tile and stone. The Stone & Tile Pavilion is your opportunity to meet face-to-face with experts, ask questions, see products and better understand the versatility of today’s porcelains, glass, cement, ceramic, mosaic, granite, marble, etc. across a wide variety of applications.

Bloggers Jungle

Market Suites, 7th Floor, East pass-through
Sponsored by:

Sit, relax and stay on top of the hot events taking place at NeoCon. Bloggers Jungle will be a hot spot for some of the industries' top web publications, such as Archinect, Archinnovations, Contemporist, Design Milk, InHabitat and Otto-Otto who will be covering the show on-site from this very location. Make sure to check out the NeoCon Live portion of NeoCon.com for the news feeds, before, during and after NeoCon.

BreakPoint Books

Market Suites, 7th Floor, Suite 7-1029 

"BreakPoint Books will be hosting an onsite bookstore during the NeoCon World's Trade Fair. BreakPoint Books will carry titles recommended by the conference speakers, and will feature titles on Interior Design, Green Building, Architecture resources & much more. Stop by to browse and network with other conference attendees at the NeoCon Bookstore, brought to you by BreakPoint Books!".

CANStruction Exhibit

The Merchandise Mart, 1st floor North & South Lobby

It starts with one can. CANstruction, a charity committed to ending hunger, is using ‘one can’ as a catalyst for change. Almost 500,000 people rely on the food provided by the Greater Chicago Food Depository each year. Chicago CANstruction’s 4th annual design competition puts a visual spotlight on hunger while showcasing the Chicago design community. www.chicagosfoodbank.org/canstruction. When: May 13 - Judging and Awards Reception, Merchandise Mart May 14- Exhibit open to the public.
     

GSA Internet Lounge Market Suites 8th Floor, Suite 8-1035 Sponsored by:      Take a break from the hectic days at NeoCon and stop by the show's GSA Internet Lounge. Relax in comfortable furnishings while checking your e-mail or browsing the Web.  Questions regarding federal government furniture procurements, or on how to do business with the federal government?  Speak with acquisition and business development professionals from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

FashioNext Fuses Textiles, Furniture, and Fashion Design

First Floor, North Central Lobby
Sponsored by:

Brentano has said “I Do” to bringing the Chicago History Museum’s FashioNext design competition to NeoCon. This year’s contest accompanies the Museum’s I Do! Chicago Ties the Knot wedding-themed exhibition that asks established fashion designers to create a garment using interior design textiles provided by Brentano. The NeoCon display adds furniture to the mix, producing an exhibition that celebrates the creative worlds of fabrics, fashion, and furniture by combining both traditional and imaginative application.

To learn more, please visit www.brentanofabrics.com/FashioNext

Furniture Revolution Gallery

Market Suites, 7th Floor, Suite 7-2014

The US has always been a springboard for revolutionary international designers and manufactures.  In honor of these legendary product designers, Charles and Ray Eames and Bill Stumpf, just to name a few, US manufacturers continue the production and sales of their revolutionary products and designs.

Today, a new breed of designers is emerging and NeoCon is proud to highlight these up and coming stars in the Furniture Revolution Gallery that will showcase new designers with big ideas that will shape the future of American design.

Antonio Larosa, Chair and Professor of the Furniture Design Department at the Savannah College of Art and Design, is the Project Chair of the Furniture Revolution Gallery.

Nomkhubulwane

The Merchandise Mart, South Drive Entrace
Sponsored by:

Partners:

What will we do to change how we live? What will accelerate our commitment to create a more sustainable world? How can an elephant catalyze this conversation and expanded commitment?”
~Andries Botha, South African artist and visionary, 2009

Internationally renowned sculptor, Andries Botha (www.andriesbotha.net), has created 17 majestic and enchanting life-size elephants from recycled materials and launched a Human Elephant Foundation to use them to accelerate imagination around issues of ecology, migration, conservation, industry and sustainability (www.humanelephant.org).

Nomkhubulwane (pronounced Nom-koo-bull-wah'-nee and named for the Zulu Goddess regarded as Mother Earth) was made in 2009 for the 9th World Wilderness Congress in Mexico. Standing more than 10 feet tall, and weighing 1.3 tons, she is made from the offcuts of recycled truck tires woven over a galvanized, mild steel support structure. She will grace the entrance to Neocon 2010 in Chicago as a powerful invitation to a new ecological imagination.

Nomkhubulwane's Neocon visit is sponsored by InterfaceFLOR, the world’s leading manufacturer of modular, soft-surfaced floorcovering for a wide range of commercial environments. InterfaceFLOR is setting the pace for the development of modular carpet using materials and processes that take less from the environment, and is well along the path to “Mission Zero,” the company’s promise to eliminate any negative impact it has on the environment by the year 2020.

Nomkhubulwane's Partners:
Human Elephant Foundation, Imagine Chicago, WILD Foundation

Green Spot and Sustainability Timeline

The Merchandise Mart, 1st Floor

The Green Product Gallery and education center showcases new, innovative, sustainable and eco-friendly products from our showroom partners. Also featured is the sustainability timeline, which celebrates many of the accomplishments of The Merchandise Mart, our showroom partners and the City of Chicago. Addressing global environmental challenges, the display highlights the product innovations, research findings and events of the last several decades that reduce our environmental footprint and make the world a better place to live. To learn more about all the green initiatives in place at The Merchandise Mart, please visit www.mmart.com/about/growinggreen/

SHOKI (show-kee) COLLECTION from Nakashima’s early years

Market Suites, 7th Floor, Suite 7-4103

The SHOKI collection was created from a recently discovered series of drawings by George Nakashima for clients in the early 1940’s, at the very dawn of his career.  We do not know whether they were ever actually built or sold, but decided to make up selected items to gain an insight into Nakashima’s creative process.  Unlike our current production, they are all made of thinner, dimensioned lumber, rather than wide, thick, flitch-cut slabs.  Fresh from architectural training, Nakashima combined angles, curves, unusual exposed joinery details and an exquisite sense of proportion to express a spare, Zen-like functionality in solid wood which he continued to refine in his later work.

As some of the designs would probably be impractical for modern-day usage, we have modified the scale on some of them, keeping the basic proportions as originally drawn, and substituted Maple for Poplar, which we no longer use in our current production.

Student Project Display

The Merchandise Mart, 10th Floor, West Corridor

View the future of interior design from the next generation of designers from local schools. Projects include innovative environments from commercial to residential, hospitality to retail from the following:

Savannah College of Art and Design Exhibit

Market Suites, 8th Floor, Suite 8-1140

The Furniture Design Department of the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA., will be exhibiting some of its finest students’ designs at NeoCon 2010. Students explore a range of materials and processes in the furniture they design to create unique and interesting pieces. The pieces on display are manufactured by companies from all over the world based on the students’ specifications. More info at: www.scad.edu/furniture-design.

Materials Pavilion
Market Suites, 8th Floor, Suite 8-3130

If an empty space is a designer's canvas, materials are the palette with which their vision is realized. At the rate new materials, finishes and applications are developed, it's hard to keep up with what's new, cool, "green" or even practical. In the I&S Materials Pavilion, organized with the help of Material Intelligence and Think Materials, you'll find samples of furniture and architectural surfaces that will add impact, value, and LEED points for commercial interior design projects.
A guide to related CEU resources and Pavilion materials in use in other NeoCon exhibits will also be available.