neocon 2009

some photographs from this year's NEOCON furniture fair in beautiful downtown Chicago. this was my third year attending... i'm starting to get familiar with a lot of the furniture, so there wasn't much surprising for me this year.

definite highlight of the show: my stacking solution! this little plastic bumper, on the bottom of Haworth's Very Wire Stacker, took up the majority of my time at my internship at Haworth last summer. fun to see it real.

favorite chair from the show: Herman Miller's Setu. comfortable, flexible, constant seating surface: beautiful and functional plastic chassis. simple construction. really excellent.

i think this natural pattern, this idea, is finally on its way out.

it's not a movement, it's an abomination.

cool fabric at the show. from a distance, the print looks like clouds, but up close, it's a matrix of hundreds of different, colorful shapes. very cool stuff. very curious how the artist made the print, manually or through some computer algorithm...

NEOCON 04: a few more winners

this herman miller's new teneo storage system. i really like it, mostly because of its creative use of construction elements, but mostly because those handles are so sweet.

this is just too cool. anyone with a cheapo chandelier and halloween decoration at hand, take note --- you could make your own $3000 light fixture for about $30.

NEOCON 03: sound and fury, nothing

steelcase drank the car design kool-aid

i was very impressed, at first, by the trendy, colorful, fresh stuff that steelcase had at their exhibit. trendy it was, right on the organic-networked-flexible metaphors. however. timeless and lasting? appropriate for an office setting? geared toward their mostly conservative clients? those marks were missed.

NEOCON 02: my favorite

yves behar designed this beautiful sofa for hbf. it doesn't scream, it whispers, "comfortable," just like a couch should. i especially like the material and color --- oatmeal? --- and the fold between the bottom and back. it needs a hug.


next to these pieces, i felt like i was in a lakeside cottage here in saugatuck. the colors and shapes recall the dunes. those are my dunes, so it may be no mystery that i would see this couch as, mine. i need to do more work like this --- timeless, fashion-free, and specific to my personal taste and experiences.