The 33 winners of the METROPOLISLikes 2026 Awards were showcased at NeoCon and Design Days in Chicago, featuring products that combine responsible manufacturing, innovative materials, and beautiful aesthetics. These winners can be found at various locations in Chicago, including the River North, Merchandise Mart, and Fulton Market.
Winning Products
Olive, a task chair, offers adjustable lumbar support, tilt, and a waterfall-edge seat, with a nature-inspired back frame color and coordinating mesh color. Land/Mark, a carpet tile collection, draws on the textures of everyday surfaces, translating wear, memory, and movement into subtle shifts in density, tone, and pattern.
Forest Within, a boldly biophilic carpet tile collection, translates birch bark and seasonal shifts into four patterns, offering a flexible system for interiors. Eight curated hues aim to address sensory experience with colors grounded in human perception, available in Glass, Chroma, and signature Varia.
Sustainable Designs
Cleve, a carbon-neutral porcelain collection, introduces a notably smooth, tactile surface while maintaining slip performance. Vicinity, a collection of four designs, draws on the natural rhythms and textures of New Zealand, printed onto Autex’s Cube panels, which contain a minimum of 80 percent recycled PET.
Boss Design developed its Lucy chair to be easily reupholstered on-site, employing a bungee cord system that secures the removable cover underneath the chair. They used a system that allows for easy replacement of the cover, making it a sustainable option. Crush brings an expressive approach to performance textiles, pairing vivid color, layered pattern, and tactile surfaces across upholstery and Biobased Xorel.
Lighting and Acoustics
Ambient Compass, a luminaire, demonstrates how craft techniques can be scaled and implemented in serial production, with a handwoven burlap or umber wool shade and a frame assembled out of hand-finished, sustainably sourced teak panels.
Outdoor and Interior Spaces
Outspan brings a composed, architectural sensibility to outdoor furniture, pairing durable materials like powder-coated steel and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with restrained forms and consistent proportions. Here and There reworks a familiar American archetype into a modular outdoor system, made from 100 percent recyclable HDPE, making it an eco-friendly option for outdoor spaces.
Mannington Commercial has ensured the renewed relevance of punch-needle rug hooking, a once widely practiced craft tradition, by translating its structural and visual quality into a layered carpet tile available in four patterns. Pallas Textiles’ latest development, NetZERO Bio, is made using GRS transaction-certified polyester and bio-attributed polyurethane built on Susterra, an ingredient produced from regeneratively cultivated dent corn, providing a sustainable option for interior spaces.
Teknion’s new task chair, Blink, features an eye-catching plastic shell made with a high percentage of recycled content, precision-molded in a pattern of cuts, depths, and spacing that enables it to flex with the sitter’s movements. The winners of the METROPOLISLikes 2026 Awards showcase a range of innovative and sustainable designs that prioritize occupant wellness, performance, and architectural cohesion, with a focus on sustainable materials and responsible manufacturing.
These designs not only improve the aesthetic of a space but also provide a functional and sustainable solution for users, making them ideal for various applications, including outdoor and interior spaces, and even gardening projects.