Fulton Market Design Days 2026 Recap: Powering Design
Every year, the commercial interiors industry gathers in Chicago for Design Days, where leading manufacturers unveil
the latest products, workplace insights, and design innovations shaping the future of work. This year's event centered around the theme Powering Design, highlighting how thoughtful design influences not only the spaces we create, but also the people and experiences within them.
What are Design Days + Neocon?
Held each June in Chicago's Merchandise Mart and Fulton Market District, NeoCon and Design Days is one of the commercial interiors industry's most influential annual events. Designers, architects, dealers, manufacturers, and end users gather to explore the latest workplace trends, experience immersive showroom installations, attend educational programming, and discover newly launched products from leading brands across the industry.
Rather than showcasing individual pieces of furniture, the events demonstrate how complete workplace environments can support collaboration, wellbeing, flexibility, and performance. Together, NeoCon and Design Days offer a comprehensive look at the ideas, technologies, materials, and design strategies shaping the future of commercial interiors.
This year's theme, Powering Design, celebrated how great ideas evolve from concept to reality through collaboration, craftsmanship, and innovation. Across the Merchandise Mart and Fulton Market showrooms, manufacturers presented their unique perspectives on workplace design, highlighting how products, materials, and technology come together to create spaces that inspire creativity, strengthen workplace culture, and support the evolving ways people work.
Highlights from Design Days 2026
Throughout the week, manufacturers introduced a wide range of new products, collections, and product enhancements across furniture, architectural solutions, textiles, lighting, and accessories. Showrooms throughout Fulton Market featured flexible workplace settings, hospitality-inspired environments, integrated technology, and sustainable material innovations that reflect the evolving needs of today's organizations.
A few themes stood out across nearly every showroom:
Flexible spaces that easily transition between focused work and collaboration
Residential-inspired comfort throughout workplace environments
Greater integration of technology into furniture and architectural solutions
Continued investment in sustainable materials and circular design practices
Products designed to support changing workplace needs for years to come
Celebrating Aeron
The Aeron Chair won Interior Design’s Iconic Product award. For decades, Herman Miller has been perfecting the chair thanks to updated research and material innovation, and the latest is available in new colors, and more sustainable than ever.