Some Design Days news rewards a second look. Kimball International‘s two awards qualify: a 2026 IIDA Showroom and Booth Design Competition win for the Chicago showroom, and an Interior Design HiP Award Honoree nod for the new Zing table collection. Different juries. One argument about workplace design.

That argument is printed on the showroom screens: Work That Feels Good. The 13,000-square-foot space treats furniture as more than support for a task. It shapes how people focus, gather, and reset across a day. IIDA cited originality, visual impact, and material handling, and the room earns it. Embroidered wildflower panels and low curved lounge seating make the case without raising their voice.

Zing earns its keep on plainer terms. It is a flexible table line built for rooms that change by the hour. Integrated power, clean wire management, and an intuitive flip-and-nest mechanism turn a training room into a town hall, then reset it by lunch. Generous kneespace and coordinating mobile carts round out the system. It is sized for workplace, education, and health settings alike. Specification stays simple. Installation stays fast.

Both wins point the same way. Strong workplace design is rarely about the statement piece. It is about environments that adjust to people rather than the reverse, whether through a showroom built on human research or a table that reconfigures without a service call. For the contract market, that distinction is the whole game.

It is the same instinct behind A More Civilized Office Chair, scaled up to a room.

_{Images Courtesy of Kimball International}