During this year’s NeoCon, the largest contract furniture trade show held in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) introduced Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Pilot Credit 43, which applies to all Building Design and Construction, Interior Design and Construction LEED rating systems.

The pilot credit supports LEED’s objective of encouraging building owners and facility managers to implement measurable green building goals as these relate to maintenance and furnishings, specifically. LEED Pilot Credit 43 promotes the use of non-structural products, with known life cycles in LEED buildings, in order to set the foundation for continuous improvement. Also, for the first time, the USGBC recognized several third-party certifiers, which validate the sustainable attributes proclaimed by manufacturers about their products. Many of the methods of earning LEED Pilot Credit 43 revolve around the use of third-party certification.

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At last month’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, in Chicago, Metropolis’s Susan Szenasy and Paul Makovsky captured a handful of key designs—and design conversations—on digital video. Above: Roger Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and the author of The Design of Business, speaks with Makovsky at an event at the Steelcase showroom in the Merchandise Mart supported by the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago.

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From this year’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart: Nearly 200 photos of the best in workplace furniture, lighting, textiles, technology, and more. Read more…

In our June issue, Ken Shulman writes about the up-and-coming design duo Antenna Design, and discusses its recent collaboration with Knoll. Antenna Workspaces is not only Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa’s first furniture-design project, it is also probably their “biggest job yet.” If you were suitably intrigued by the photographs that accompanied that feature, here’s a video (from the folks over at Cool Hunting) where you can see Antenna Workspaces in all its glory, and hear the “intense listeners” talk about the process of creating it.

This year’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair is less than two weeks away. If you’re traveling to Chicago for the event, be sure to pick up a copy of our annual Taste of the Town guide at the Merchandise Mart. Although, really, why wait until you arrive to make dining plans? You can read all our restaurant recommendations—conveniently classified by lunch, dinner, and drinks—in the online version of the guide, now available on our Live@NeoCon site.

It’s the motherlode! In the 72 hours since this year’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair wrapped up at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, our roving photographers have been busy putting together a slew of nearly 150 photos (!) from the show floor and area showrooms. Without further ado, then, we present a tour of some of the best in workplace furniture, lighting, textiles, and technology (and cocktail parties) from the exhibitors at the 2009 NeoCon. Read more…

Even at NeoCon, the ground zero of wire management, the wires resist management.

Imagine a time when you don’t need to carry around your bulky, tangled chargers for your laptop and various PDAs, a day when there are no wires snaking across your living room floor as your computer powers up. Now, imagine no wires in sight. You simply put your laptop or phone on a flat surface and voilá, you’re charging and ready to communicate. This is not a far-fetched idea; it can start happening as soon as 2010. Read more…

This is a joke, right? That was my reaction to the instant-classic viral video of an office drone going utterly beserk—heaving his PC across the room, toppling panels, menacing coworkers with what looks like an axe—all caught on a security camera. But that’s not the part that shocked me. Read more…