Neocon 2012 - A Review - Sedia Systems · Neocon 2012 – A Review JSA Consultancy Services 6 KI announced the signing of a new product licensing agreement with Boss Design from the

Neocon Review 2012

– an international perspective

The open State Street bridge welcomes visitors to Neocon

John Sacks

JSA Consultancy Services

June 2012

©John Sacks June 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by

any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without

the prior written permission of the copyright owner, or in accordance with the

provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

Published by JSA Consultancy Services

3 Field Court, Gray’s Inn, London, WC1R 5EP, England

www.jsacs.com; [email protected] Tel: +44 20 7269 7986

Neocon 2012 – A Review JSA Consultancy Services

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Review

The temperature in a sunny Chicago on Monday soared to a withering 95 degrees

Fahrenheit (35 Celsius), which encouraged the hoards of first day visitors to Neocon

to stay inside the air conditioned Merchandise Mart, rather than venture outside.

Although few would admit it, there had been some advance trepidation as to whether

this Neocon would generate the excitement of shows gone by. The Merchandise

Mart owners denied rumours that the show did not have a long term future by

publishing the show dates for each of the next ten years. Pre-announced product

launches were rather thin on the ground. An economy which could be stronger, and

the uncertainty of an election year combined to cause concern. In the event, there

were plenty of visitors genuinely interested in the products displayed and in the

companies displaying them, as well as planning on having a good time.

Manufacturers’ trucks lined up outside the Merchandise Mart

There weren’t many major changes in showroom locations and configuration.

Teknion had taken more space and now occupy over 16,000 sq. ft., and a few

companies, including Izzy and the Steelcase group of companies had consolidated

their spaces.

As with all good trade shows, Neocon provides great networking opportunities and

evidence of both casual, and rather more formal, pre-arranged get-togethers could

be seen wherever you turned.

The show’s 700+ showrooms and other exhibitors are spread over five floors of the

iconic 1930s Art Deco Merchandise Mart, covering well over 1m sq ft. The


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permanent showrooms do not interconnect, but instead are individual units, and

because the floors are interwoven with intersecting corridors, the time and distance

needed to cover the show is much greater than for conventionally arranged

exhibitions.

As usual, the temporary exhibition areas on the 7th and 8th floors of the Mart

accommodated both many small, and not so small companies either from overseas,

wanting to dip a toe into the US waters, and also more established local

manufacturers who preferred not to take a permanent showroom on one of the other

Neocon floors (3rd, 10th and 11th). This year however, especially on the 8th floor, there

was evidence of a number of larger, more professional displays of serious products

which started to generate considerable visitor traffic as early as Tuesday morning.

Trends

Exhibitors’ responses to the current market conditions differed, but few of the many

new products launched were the result of the massive investment in design,

development and tooling we have seen in previous years. Instead, following what

has been seen in Europe over the past few years, there were many examples of

mainstream office furniture companies venturing into soft seating, attracted no doubt

by lower development costs and faster times to market. What was termed

“collaboration” technology was also exploited by Haworth, Steelcase, Teknion, Izzy+,

KI, Tuohy, Vitra, and many others, all of whom showed furniture and devices which

allowed people to contribute to, and share the results of, collaborative work,

invariably grouped around large display screens.

European design continues to be strongly influential in the US market, not only with

an ever increasing number products being commissioned from named designers

from the UK and Italy and Germany, but also in the styling of US designed products.

Task seating lines are ever sharper and slimmer in appearance, and that trend can

also be seen to a lesser extent, with executive seating. Height adjustable

workstations, common in many countries in Europe, were for the first time to be seen

everywhere in the permanent showrooms of the larger manufacturers, rather than

just on the exhibition booths on the temporary floors.

Breakout furniture, including soft seating and high backed upholstery products,

previously seen here only from European companies such as Vitra, was very much

in evidence in the showrooms of most of the manufacturers, even those never before

involved in upholstered products. The high backed seating units, with claims to good

acoustic properties, were often combined with low tables and large display screens

for shared inputs to presentations and discussions.


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As for colours, unlike the organic browns and greys seen at this year’s Milan Fair,

Neocon was bright and bold with orange, reds, greens and still whites everywhere.

By far the most popular fabric for occasional seating was felt, plain and patterned,

and in every colour of the rainbow. It’s environmental and acoustic properties were

being promoted, but there must be some concern as to how hardwearing it will prove

to be.

The companies

Teknion, Davis and Nucraft (who won the Best of Competition with Passport

designed by Joey Ruiter) were the three companies which together swept up many

of the Best of Neocon awards, with four apiece.

Nucraft’s Passport – solo and duo

Knoll’s space leaned heavily on retro notions and styling, and included Florence

Knoll’s Private Office, Richard Schultz’ Petal Table from 1960 and Bertoia Diamond

Seating from 1955. More up to date offerings were the Toboggan Chair and Big

Table from Antenna Design.

Knoll Petal Table (1960) Toboggan


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Knoll’s Big Table

Chuck Saylor’s Izzy+ has shown great liveliness and creativity for several years. The

Nemo Bar and Trellis, introduced in concept form in 2010, has been developed and

extended to good effect.

Izzy+ Nemo Bar & Trellis


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KI announced the signing of a new product licensing agreement with Boss Design

from the UK and had a good display of their chairs, as well as showing KI’s own new

Lightline moveable seamless glass wall system.

Boss Design seating KI’s Lightline

OFS won a Gold Award for Trace, another “collaborative” product, this time based on

Daniel Korb’s “11” system which has now been developed to include power and data

outlets in conference tables.

One of the most exciting products at this year’s Neocon was JumpSeat from Wilson

Troup’s Sedia Systems and designed by Ziba Design. This was an elegant and

simple auditorium seat formed from two plywood panels, one fixed and the other

which folded down on a hinge to form the seat

Jump Seat from Sedia Systems


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Tuohy showed Jess Sorel’s Coda Collection of stylish executive furniture and

Andreu World from Spain displayed some attractive contract seating products.

Coda collection from Tuohy

The enlarged and redesigned 10th floor showroom of Teknion was noticeably

brighter and more attractive than most and they had several new simple workstation

ranges as well as the Gold Award winning Logiq technology for cloud-based

monitoring and controlling of workstation power consumption and DNA, a system of

modular breakout furniture.

Teknion’s DNA

Keilhauer from Canada showed some attractive seating products including Talk,

conceived for Keilhauer by Eoos, a new system of acoustically effective seating, and


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tables, to accommodate and optimise face to face meetings and Loon, the new Gold

Award winning stacking occasional chair from Tom Deacon.

Talk by Keilhauer

Innovant from New York showed an electrically height adjustable version of their

Gold Award winning FORm benching system where each workplace can be

separately adjusted.

FORm Benching from Innovant

As usual, Herman Miller’s showroom was probably busier than any other, although

they were showing fewer in the way of exciting new products than many others.

Their stated aim was to “support groups working together and foster a sense of

community that enables people to do their best”. Range extensions for Canvas


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Office Landscape included products designed specifically for small group settings,

and the company also showed the Luxo 360 desk lamp.

Crowds at Herman Miller and the Luxo 360 lamp

Haworth announced they were “driven by (their) desire to help unleash the power of

collaboration” – pretty much in line with Herman Miller and others. They were among

the manufacturers showing high-backed seating with their Tulip Lounge chairs

designed by Marcel Wanders and upholstered in bright red. However, the highlight of

their presentation was the Best of Neocon Gold Award winning Workware

conferencing system which uniquely featured the use of wireless technology

connecting the ‘collaborators’ to the presentation equipment. Haworth also showed

Shetland, an active, responsive rocker or a simple bench that provides a casual,

playful and interactive seating option for impromptu collaboration. (That word again!)

Haworth Workware and Shetland


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The best showroom of the “big five”, by some margin, was Steelcase. Their

message was clear and easily understood. From FrameOne, a bench system that

expands or contracts to meet future demands, through Answer, a new infinitely-

expandable panel system with a clever patented frame design and on to the newly

extended media:scape collaborative working technology system, one had the

impression of a logically structured product offering.

Steelcase FrameOne bench and Mini Media:scape

Steelcase’s new TagWizard is a personal space reservation system allowing users

to find an available space, scan in and reserve any shared workspace “tagging” the

space from their laptop or mobile device. The system also collects information using

occupancy sensors and measures temperature, air quality and lighting levels.

Davis had an attractive space, presenting some well designed seating, including

Perch, the newly launched Web Curve by Burkhard Vogtherr and Markus Dörner

featuring a hand woven design wrapped in webbing. Additionally, the reddot design

award winner, Trefor for use in corporate cafes, libraries and hospitality settings.

More collaboration!

Davis Perch seating and Web Curve chairs


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Allermuir from the UK showed two new seating products in their 3rd floor space.

Mayze, a comfortable guest chair from Jonathan Prestwich featuring a 3 dimensional

knitted membrane and the Confer multipurpose seating by Simon Pengelly available

in a white or black shell with upholstered seats, and both high and medium back

models.

Maize from Allermuir

The DIRTT showroom is on the 10th floor of a building adjacent to the Mart and

displays the company’s fitted interiors for healthcare and corporate organisations.

New this year was a built-in executive suite with a workstation made from reclaimed

timber and a 200 bottle, cooled wine store integrated into a wall cavity.

DIRTT’s built-in furniture


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and finally...

Apart from being able to witness the industry’s finest putting on the best of

presentations imaginable, it’s not difficult to see why Neocon is still clearly very

popular, attracting many thousands of visitors. Chicago is one of the very great

cities of the world - and after a day trekking around showrooms, those attendees with

enough stamina can enjoy its attractions to the full, taking in some of its thousands of

bars and restaurants, sampling every type of music, including of course world class

blues, and basking in its stunning architecture, enhanced by the river and lake. Let’s

hope the rumours of the show’s demise prove to have been nothing more than just

rumours, and that we can continue returning for many years to come.

and just what were these characters up to?

JSA Consultancy Services

‘Advising office furniture businesses

around the world’

3 Field Court

Gray's Inn

London WC1R 5EP

England

T. 44 (0) 20 7269 7986

E. [email protected]

W: www.jsacs.com

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Neocon 2012 - A Review - Sedia Systems · Neocon 2012 – A Review JSA Consultancy Services 6 KI announced the signing of a new product licensing agreement with Boss Design from the