Key Takeaways:
- Materials are playing an increasingly important role in shaping design concepts and product stories.
- Responsible design continues to evolve beyond sustainability claims to include circularity, transparency, and material health.
- New product launches at Chicago Design Week, including new carpet collections from Interface, Bentley Mills, and Milliken made with ECONYL® nylon, demonstrate how materials can reinforce design vision.
- Hear from the designers behind these award-winning collections on why responsible material choices are becoming an increasingly important part of the creative process.
NeoCon and Fulton Market Design Days, collectively known as Chicago Design Week, offer a glimpse into where the commercial interiors industry is headed. This year, it was clear that sustainability is no longer an afterthought. It has become an integral part of how products are designed, manufactured, and evaluated.
This marked the 15th year the ECONYL® brand has been present at Chicago Design Week. Over the years, we’ve seen sustainability evolve from a niche consideration into a key driver of product development. Today, designers and specifiers are seeking materials that deliver exceptional aesthetics and performance while also supporting circularity, resource conservation, and human health and wellness.
This evolution was evident across showrooms throughout Chicago. From nature-inspired palettes and rich textures to new approaches to storytelling, brands demonstrated how responsible material choices are helping drive innovation across the commercial interiors industry.
Materiality as Part of the Design Story
Among the many product launches showcased at Chicago Design Week were several notable carpet collections made with ECONYL® nylon, including collections from Interface, Bentley Mills, and Milliken.
While each collection explored a different idea, all shared a common belief that materials should support both design vision and sustainability ambition. And in many cases, the material became an extension of the design concept itself, reinforcing themes of transformation, memory, resilience, and renewal.
We spoke with the designers behind these award-winning collections while we were at Chicago Design Week. Their perspectives offer insight into how materials, like ECONYL® nylon, are shaping contemporary design and why responsible material choices are becoming an increasingly important part of the creative process.
Forest Within, a collection from Interface celebrating nature’s constant transformation
As a longtime leader in biophilic design, Interface introduced Forest Within, a new carpet tile collection designed by David Oakey. Inspired by trees and the ever-changing character of forests, Forest Within reimagines how nature can be expressed in interior environments.
Through four complementary styles, Forest Within moves from subtle, textural neutrals to bold, expressive patterns, creating a flexible system that allows designers to bring varying levels of energy and movement into a space. The collection’s unique approach to biophilic design earned a MetropolisLikes 2026 award.
In our conversation with Oakey, he reflected on the contrast between nature and interiors. While forests are constantly changing from season to season and even hour to hour, interior environments are often designed for consistency. Forest Within challenges that thinking by encouraging designers to embrace change within the built environment.
Bentley Mills’ Land/Mark collection designs spaces that stay with us
As a California-based manufacturer, Bentley Mills has long embraced rigorous environmental standards and responsible manufacturing practices. Those values are reflected in Land/Mark, the latest collection made with ECONYL® regenerated nylon, which debuted at Chicago Design Week.
Designed by Todd van der Kruik of Neutral Haus, Land/Mark is inspired by the spaces that stay with us long after we’ve left them. Through layered textures and subtle variations in tone and pattern, the collection explores how wear, movement, and memory shape our connection to places.
For van der Kruik, the inspiration was personal. Drawing from formative spaces in his own life, including his parents’ garage where he started a punk band as a teenager, Land/Mark is designed to help create environments that leave a lasting impression and become part of people’s stories. The collection’s thoughtful exploration of memory and materiality was recognized with a MetropolisLikes 2026 award.
Reflecting on the collection, van der Kruik shared how memory shaped his design process. He describes how certain spaces stay with us long after we’ve experienced them, accumulating layers of meaning over time.
Ignited Earth from Milliken Tells a Story of Resilience and Renewal
Known for combining technical performance with thoughtful design, Milliken introduced Ignited Earth at Chicago Design Week, a collection that explores the relationship between landscape, movement, and human adaptation.
Designed by Jess Herring, Ignited Earth draws inspiration from the volcanic terrain of Portugal’s Azores Archipelago. Through three patterns inspired by volcanic ash, flowing lava, and basalt stone formations, Ignited Earth explores themes of resilience and renewal. The collection’s high-texture construction creates visual depth, bringing a richness and sense of place to interior environments.
The story is deeply personal for Herring, whose family emigrated from the Azores following the 1957 volcanic eruption on Faial Island. Today, many descendants are returning to the islands, creating a powerful narrative about resilience and returning home. This cycle of departure, adaptation, and return helped shape the collection’s narrative.
Herring also spoke about the role materiality played in the collection’s development. For her, the use of ECONYL® nylon became a natural extension of Ignited Earth’s themes of adaptation and renewal. Just as the landscapes and communities that inspired the collection continue to evolve, so does ECONYL® nylon in transforming what was once waste into a resource for future design.
The Role of Regenerated Materials in Design Innovation
One of the most encouraging takeaways from Chicago Design Week was seeing how fully the commercial interiors industry has embraced the challenge of designing for both people and planet. Sustainability is no longer viewed as a constraint on creativity. Instead, it is becoming a catalyst for innovation.
The collections showcased throughout Chicago demonstrated that regenerated and circular materials can serve as creative tools rather than design constraints. From biophilic patterns to collections rooted in memory and transformation, designers are proving that responsible material choice strengthens a product’s story, performance, and impact.
As designers and manufacturers continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, materials will play an increasingly important role in shaping that future. The choices made at the beginning of a product’s life have a lasting impact not just on the product story but on its ability to contribute to a more circular economy.
We left Chicago encouraged by the industry’s continued commitment to responsible design and inspired by the ways leading brands are using materials like ECONYL® nylon to create products that prove great design and responsible design can move forward together.