The Best Green Designs from the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair

The NeoCon World's Trade Fair began yesterday, drawing over 40,000 visitors to fill the eighteen floors of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Attendees in search of the latest trends in carpet, tiles, furniture, and lighting were swarming the pristine showrooms of some of the biggest names in the architectural product industry. We were delighted to see that there were strong sustainability stories surrounding many of the products, starting right at the front door with a huge elephant made from recycled tires installed by InterfaceFLOR as a testament to their vow to not use any petroleum-based products by the end of 2010. Read on for more great green finds from this year's show!

InterfaceFLOR‘s giant recycled elephant was created in partnership with the Human Elephant Foundation and Chicago’s Field Museum. The elephant was crafted entirely from tires by South African artist Andres Botha. Because the elephant has a lifespan similar to humans, and have family units and relationship similar to our own, it has been chosen as the symbol to represent the company’s “Off Oil by 2020” mission.

NeoCon, 2010, design, tradeshow, showrooms, architectural products, green, eco, events, sustainable, carpet, tile, furniture, paint, fabric, chicago

The InterfaceFLOR showroom unveiled a collection that is throwback to 1980’s Memphis styling. Not Memphis, Tennessee — but rather the geometric, bold-colored design period that grew out of Italy three decades ago. InterfaceFLOR proves that eco can also be wild with this collection made from a minimum 31% post-consumer recycled content (64% total).

NeoCon, 2010, design, tradeshow, showrooms, architectural products, green, eco, events, sustainable, carpet, tile, furniture, paint, fabric, chicago

The Crinoline line of outdoor furniture from B&B Italia is constructed of natural fibers hand-woven into soft, flowing forms. Known for her excellent use of textures and sophisticated ornamentation, designer Patricia Urquiola plays with the stiff, structural weave of the furniture by adorning the chairs with natural fiber ponchos.

NeoCon, 2010, design, tradeshow, showrooms, architectural products, green, eco, events, sustainable, carpet, tile, furniture, paint, fabric, chicago

Crossville Tile is dedicated to sustainability and touts that they were the first porcelain tile company to use recycled content in a product called EcoCycle. Today they offer a great variety of tiles with recycled content, accounting for over 6 million pounds of waste diverted from landfills. A standout from their 2010 offering is the Urban Renewal line of metallic tiles, which is SCS certified to have 50% post-consumer recycled content.

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