NeoCon announced the winners of the 33rd annual Best of NeoCon Awards. The highly esteemed program recognizes products from industry-leading companies that demonstrate unparalleled innovation and design-forward thinking. Selected by a distinguished jury of architects, designers, specifiers, enterprise clients, facility managers, and top business media, each of the entries was evaluated on-site in the days leading up to the show. A total of 114 awards were bestowed upon products in more than 50 categories for Gold, Silver, Sustainability, Innovation, Business Impact, and the coveted Best of Competition honors. 

Mike Ford + Shaw Contract

Shaw Contract

Category: Carpet: Area Rugs

• Gold Award
• Innovation Award

Shaw Contract has partnered with renowned Hip Hop Architect Mike Ford to create a distinctive rug collection celebrating Hip Hop's 50th anniversary. Ford aims to position Hip Hop as design inspiration, exploring tactile experiences and spotlighting its genius. The collaboration highlights Hip Hop's textures, patterns, and rhythms, showcasing its energy, optimism, and rich history. This collaboration delves into the intersection of design and Hip Hop culture.

The collection showcases five patterns, each embodying a unique attribute of Hip Hop culture. The DJing pattern is inspired by the worn stack of records DJs would carry with them; the Breakin pattern pays homage to makeshift cardboard dancefloors from the 70s and 80s; the Emcee pattern reflects the artistry of rap lyrics through mathematical analysis; the Graffiti pattern celebrates the collective art and fluid lettering styles; and the Knowledge pattern, represents the latest element of Hip Hop and translates the complexities of lyrical analysis into tangible design.

Adhering to Shaw Contract's 'People Together, Planet Forever' initiative, a portion of the collection’s proceeds will help fund future Hip Hop Architecture camps, which empowers underrepresented youth and further broadens Ford's work of using design as a tool to advance equity, justice, and inclusion within communities.

Cultura

Shaw Contract

Category: Carpet: Area Rugs and Carpet: Broadloom

• Silver Award

Carpet: Modular

• Gold Award

Cultura is a dynamic rug collection inspired by the rich culture and artistic heritage of Oaxaca, Mexico. This unique collection represents a beautiful fusion of traditional Oaxacan techniques with innovative design principles, creating a diverse blend of constructions, textures, and patterns. Cultura's design inspiration is a testament to elevated artistry, capturing the geometry of Sierra Norte mountains and the ruins of Monte Alban, while embodying the warmth of Oaxacan craft. 

It all came to life as the Shaw Contract design team traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico. While there, they spent time with the community, learning about Oaxacan dying, weaving and even pottery techniques that have been handed down for generations. These are the building blocks of art, craft and history—the culture of the place. And the inspiration behind the new collection called Cultura.

Mycotopia

Mohawk Group

Category: Carpet: Broadloom

• Gold Award

Mushrooms play a vital role in the natural environment, and now they can play a role in the built environment as well. Inspired by the hidden structures, intricate patterns, beauty and ecological importance of these organisms, Mycotopia is a multi-category carpet collection from Durkan/Mohawk Group Hospitality that explores the sense of well-being and connection that nature provides to humankind.

The collection was created to be easy to integrate into a variety of different contract and hospitality spaces, offering multiple pattern scales, constructions and platform types. These include sculpted high-end Definity broadloom, Pattern Perfect, tufted guestroom broadloom, Precision Dye Injection (PDI) print tile and hand-tufted area rugs.

As part of Durkan’s commitment to sustainability and community, an original artwork inspired by Mycotopia was commissioned from Connie Avery. Avery is an artist that the manufacturer initially connected with through its ArtLifting product design collaboration to uplift and empower artists with disabilities. Avery's art is a reflection of her experiences and her family. She lives with retinitis pigmentosa and Usher’s syndrome, diseases which progressively reduce her ability to see and hear. Despite these challenges, Avery successfully pursued her dream of graduating from college and becoming an artist.

Material Edit Soft Surface

Patcraft

Category: Carpet: Modular

• Silver Award
• Innovation Award

Exploring synergies between process and product design, Material Edit is a carpet tile collection designed throughout an artful journey that shaped the patterns, colors and combination of multiple platforms. With unique visuals across multiple product platforms, Material Edit offers a multi-priced solution with a tiered approach. The variation in styles allows for design flexibility, connecting modern aesthetics with ease of use and product coordination. Featuring eight colorways ranging from saturated hues to warm and cool neutrals, the five styles are available in 18” x 36” carpet tiles.

Material Edit soft surface products are constructed with EcoSolution Q100(TM) yarn, which offers 100 percent post-industrial recycled content allocated from waste minimization and collection efforts. Using this yarn in conjunction with EcoWorx backing creates a lower, overall embodied carbon footprint for the product, which is reflected in the EC3 tool. Products are manufactured with EcoWorx backing, are Cradle to Cradle Certified Silver, and can be recycled at the end of their useful life to then be remade into EcoWorx flooring through the re[TURN] Reclamation Program. The collection is also carbon neutral.

Taking Root

Mohawk Group

Category: Hard-Surface Flooring: Vinyl/LVT

• Gold Award
• Sustainability Award

Taking Root is Mohawk Group's latest Beyond Carbon Neutral commercial LVT collection that draws inspiration from the deep connection to nature and the grown world. The domestically manufactured line of hard surface flooring features three extraordinary styles that that embody abstraction from nature, with biophilic design elements inspired by mushroom structures, mycelium growth, and spalted maples of the forest.

Taking Root is comprised of three styles: Transfiguration, Mycotexture and Zone Lines. Transfiguration and Mycotexture are available as 18" x 36" tiles in a 2.5mm or 4.5mm thickness. Zone Lines is available in 2.5 mm and 4.5 mm thickness options, as well as a 6mm (including a 1mm attached pad) rigid click LVT, with slightly varied plank sizes per construction, that allow for seamless integration with Mohawk Group’s existing domestic LVT collections, such as Large and Local, Living Local, and Second Home.

Mohawk Group supports organizations with social co-benefits that support communities in need. Continuing the collaboration with Artlifting, we commissioned artist Lindsay Holcomb to create original artwork inspired by Taking Root. As part of our Specify for a Cure program, a portion of all sales from Taking Root also support the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Cultura LVT

Shaw Contract

Category: Hard-Surface Flooring: Vinyl/LVT

• Silver Award

The Cultura LVT collection by Shaw Contract is a distinctive line of luxury vinyl tile (LVT) inspired by global cultural diversity. It extends the ethos of the Cultura collection, uniting geometric and wood-inspired visuals to create a broad range of design possibilities. Designed to harmonize with the Cultura carpet collection, Cultura LVT offers robust design and performance solutions for diverse commercial spaces, including workplaces, hospitality venues, multi-family residences, educational institutions, and healthcare facilities.

Material Edit Hard Surface

Patcraft

Category: Hard-Surface Flooring: Vinyl/LVT

• Innovation Award

Material Edit is a hard surface collection that was developed in collaboration, inspired by connection and shared artistic experience, and designed throughout an artful journey that shaped the patterns, colors and combination of multiple platforms.

The three resilient styles, Kiln, Woodtone and Curved, are available in 9” x 36” planks and five complementary colors. Kiln is a textural stone visual and Woodtone is a nature-inspired wood visual. The colorways for the two styles naturally enhance each other for subtle contrast. Curved is an abstract combination style, featuring arcs and rounded edges for imaginative installations that create interesting compositions. When used together, the three styles provide opportunities for playful design and creativity throughout the built environment.

The LVT styles feature a 20 mil wear layer for superior durability, and the 5mm product construction allows for installation alongside carpet without the need for transition. An ExoGuard finish provides enhanced scratch and stain resistance.

Bjelin Hardened Wood Class 33

Bjelin by Valinge

Category: Hard-Surface Flooring: Natural Materials

• Silver Award

Commercial areas demand unique requirements and traditionally it’s been a question of form rather than function — but not anymore. The Hardened Wood Class 33 range from Bjelin is proof that a beautiful real wood floor can be perfectly suitable even for a heavily trafficked area. With the advanced technology from sister company, Välinge Innovation, it’s now possible to achieve the perfect foundation for your business, whether it’s a hotel, restaurant, café or boutique, without having to make any compromises.

The unique Woodura technology featured in our hardened wood collection makes our floors smarter and more environmentally friendly than any standard hardwood floor. This groundbreaking method enables ten times more flooring to be produced from the same amount of lumber compared to traditional options and it creates a three times stronger surface. In combination with the waterproof 5G Dry installation system - we can honestly say that our floors are truly more durable and more sustainable.

The Bjelin Hardened Wood Class 33 collection features unique designs available in luxurious XXL formats. A real wood floor - ingrained with true innovation.

The Mycelium Collection of SRP

HMTX Industries

Category: Specialty Flooring

• Sustainability Award

The Mycelium Collection is the market’s first introduction to an entirely new, non-vinyl, circular multilayer flooring system bred from innovations in sustainability, the circular economy, and biophilic design: SRP rigid core flooring

SRP rigid core flooring is an alchemy of responsible beauty that transforms waste plastic bottles into innovative, circular flooring. Two plastic bottles (PET) are upcycled into each square foot of SRP flooring, which is constructed with a PET top layer, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) core layer, and a cross-linked polyurethane foam back layer.

SRP flooring can be ground and transformed into an engineered TPU giving HMTX the ability to recycle each plank into new planks, making it a circular product.

SRP is being introduced to the market through the Mycelium Collection, which offers 20 digitally printed SKUs in biophilicly designed planks and tiles, hosting modern, unique wood looks along with organic abstracts inspired by mycelium’s construction and impact on the ecosystem it inhabits.

The collection is offered in both 12”x24” tiles and 8.66”x49.2” planks, all elevated with an in-registered emboss.

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