A showroom experience

Design is tricky. It should never be easy, honestly. The harder the design challenge the better the design solution. And a showroom is no different. In fact, I’d say a showroom is the most difficult design challenge.

?A showroom is a living, working space. It’s a retail experience.?It’s a clean exhibit space, that shows everything we want to show. It works for self-guided tours, but also full curated presentations. It’s got to be fully integrated with current technology, but can’t be burdened or reliant on technology. You can see what’s happening here, right? It’s utterly full of contradictions.

Be simple, but tell the entire story.

Be calm and show finishes that speak to everyone, but be exciting and introduce new palettes and concepts.

Be a space that feels real and one I can immediately work in, but show everything your product can do and how in the same space at the same time.

Inspire me, but don’t be too out there.

And then, while achieving everything above, it also needs to show multiple planning styles, product lines, brands, layouts, finishes, options. But don’t forget! This needs to feel like a space you can walk into and start working. Speak in a customer's voice, and avoid talking internal speak (who cares if it’s District or Leverage?)

?Balancing a showroom is being able to sell to a specific need, while also showing a solution for every need. To be a place you can buy furniture while never feeling like a furniture store.

This has been a pretty long preamble to get to this point: I’m pretty sure we did it in Chicago at our new home in Fulton Market.

We showed:

We formed the experience of the showroom through the entrance – the WHY. To remind people that this is a thoughtful process, and one that requires us to examine what our clients are asking for, where we know we can achieve those needs, and what we have to add to get there. It shows the Teknion culture: listen, try, improvise, push ourselves to be different, and to always try to answer “the why” of every product.

So from “the why” comes “the how” – the showroom. What applications come from the why, what workstyles are supported best, what finishes take that application from law firm to start up? The brief for a showroom should read the - design of a space that allows for a custom experience for all users. Visit us at 800 Fulton Street to get your custom experience