Manufacturers, buyers, and designers descended on HD Expo this week to showcase and celebrate new innovations in contract design and look ahead to where the hospitality category is going. Across the show floor in Las Vegas, the key emerging theme seemed to be wellness—with verdant plants adorning booths, rest and relaxation a topic of conversation, and biophilic designs covering carpets, wallpapers, tiles, and more.
In the DesignWell Pavilion, created by the design team from Hilton, a cascading water print underfoot (courtesy of Milliken) set the tone for the nature-inspired space. And if the soothing details didn’t do enough to get visitors in the R&R mindset, massage chairs by HydroMassage could certainly help them along.
Meanwhile, at Durkan, a subsidiary of Mohawk Group, vibrant carpets inspired by organic elements like flowers and beehives—part of the new ReBloom collection—stood out. Patterns in the collection were developed in partnership with ArtLifting, an organization that elevates the work of artists with disabilities or who are experiencing housing insecurity. Beyond its natural influences, the collection is also manufactured sustainably—the line achieves one hundred percent carbon neutrality and an additional 5% offset—and no water is used in the dyeing process.
Sustainability also underscored much of what was shown, with Room & Board for Business proudly promoting their new B Corp Certified status and showing reclaimed wood in their outdoor pieces from the Montego collection. As part of the company’s Urban Wood Project, they are utilizing ash trees affected by the emerald ash borer in their native Minneapolis, with the goal of removing 1,000 trees from the destruction per year by 2025. The Montego line features ash both from fallen urban trees and harvested from sustainably managed US forests.
