These awards include IIDA’s ‘Best Small Showroom’,  ‘Best of Competition’ for its newly designed Chicago showroom as well as a Metropolis Likes award for the Adapt Collection. It is the second time Hightower has come away with these prestigious honours during commercial furniture’s largest annual US-based trade show. IIDA, the International Interior Design Association’s Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA commented, “…an exceptional use of thought and creativity that humanised the way we think about design.”

For their 2021 redesigned showroom, Hightower again partnered with Interior Designer Casey Keasler and her team at Casework, a Portland, OR design studio, transforming the 3,500 sf Chicago space giving visitors a provocative new way to interpret the Hightower brand, frequently associated since it’s 2003 founding for modern, Scandinavian contract furniture and accessories.

“I think we could all use a little optimism right now and I certainly leaned into that collaborating with Hightower for their 2021 showroom design,” shared Keasler. “Visitors will see dramatic touches like trompe l’oeil wallpaper, rich velvets, and wools in an unexpected partnership with botanicals. We embraced deep garnets, blush velvets, and soft beiges, contrasting them with details of brass, rich browns, and textured creams.”

“We want to remind people of the energy, creativity, and curiosity that can only be experienced in shared environments—that feeling of excitement,” added Jessica Ahlering, Hightower’s Director of Marketing & Product. We’re taking back shared spaces where socialisation and collaboration are optimised; recognising where we’ve been but igniting optimism and challenging people to look at new ways of coming together.”

Hightower also received a Metropolis Likes award for the Adapt Collection, a unique seating collection designed in Australia by Ross Gardam and manufactured at Hightower’s North Carolina facility. Metropolis Magazine honours commercial designs each year at NeoCon which “represent the height of innovation, creativity, utility, and sustainability.”

Hightower’s showroom design team member and company Design Director Shawn Sowers was on hand at NeoCon to guide visitors through the nearly 60 products on display and commented, “What we’re showing here is breadth and diversity in design voices; the brands in our portfolio coming together, speaking in a shared language. The experience we’ve created for NeoCon 2021 illustrates our offerings but more importantly, how those pieces can work together in compelling ways so that the furniture becomes secondary to the feeling of place. Simply put, it’s delight.”