It's hard to believe that two years have passed since I wrote about the great three day contract furnishing extravaganza that is NeoCon. This year I am not writing as anyone's citizen blogger. I'm writing this for myself. I'm writing because this year's trade show really inspired me.
Commercial design, particularly that of office spaces, could be about so much more than just arranging grid after grid of cubicles. It's about changing the way that people work. It's about work being more than just busywork, but something meaningful and worthy of a sense of pride and ownership, employment that speaks to a greater sense of worth and personal fulfillment. It is certainly an idea whose time has come as more US jobs get outsourced and automated. What are the jobs of the future? What will they look like? And wouldn't it be wonderful if these future workplaces could look as beautiful as these showrooms?
I never thought about commercial design in this way before. I always thought it would be kind of boring. But now that I work in an office myself, I can appreciate good office design. It can make all the difference in making workers' jobs easier or more difficult. I think I'd like to design some offices one day. And I don't think I'd be bored with it at all.
Here are some more pictures I took this year at NeoCon:
Read more at: http://360.steelcase.com/
