The annual Interior Design Show (IDS), held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, returned last week, wrapping on Sunday, January 21, after a four-day run. The show featured hundreds of exhibitors, including Metropolitan Floors. The event saw an impressive turnout, with dealers, distributors, architects and design professionals in attendance.
For Metropolitan, IDS has been a long-standing tradition. “We’ve been attending IDS for many years,” said Wilf Selfe, vice president, of Eastern Canada, at Metropolitan Floors. “The audience this show brings with architects, builders, and designers is unparalleled. We hope to continue to foster closer relationships with the A&D community, closer relationships with builders and to showcase our new products and our mission as a company, at large.”
During IDS, Metropolitan Floors announced the 2024 Metropolitan Design Challenge winners, spotlighting Jenny Bae Huggon, Gigi Lombardo-Dybalski, and Natalie Guberney, all of whom attend Sheridan College. Their design, called “Origins,” was constructed and showcased at Metropolitan’s booth for attendees to admire. The installation invited viewers to interact with it through the use of a map, inspiring them to document their own ‘origins.’
Open to Ontario students enrolled in a post-secondary interior design program, the challenge awards the winning design with a cash prize of fifteen hundred dollars. “The challenge is all about giving back to the design community. It’s rewarding for us because we always look forward to seeing how students draw inspiration from the theme and use our products,” said Joe Cosentino, builder – commercial business manager, Eastern Canada, at Metropolitan Floors.
The design challenge is a manifestation of Metropolitan’s core values, an ethos to design the most sustainable and ethically made flooring. This year, the challenge took inspiration from Metropolitan’s Clean Floors program, a forest-to-floor quality assurance and environmental compliance program. The theme of the challenge, coined “Crafted with Conscience,” challenged participants to design an installation that gives both meaning and life to the phrase and incorporates Kentwood’s latest flooring designs.
The winning students were thrilled to have their design showcased at the event. “We were really inspired by how Kentwood knows the origins of their wood,” said Gigi Lombardo-Dybalski.
“It was such a fun project for us to undertake. We wanted to symbolize our connection to the earth but also to each other,” said Natalie Guberney.
“Our hope with the piece is that it provokes conversation amongst people as they view it,” added Jenny Bae Huggon.
During the show, Metropolitan also launched its new 2024 flooring designs. Featuring ten new and notable collections with beautiful selections from Kentwood and Evoke Flooring, the new offerings include extra-wide plank-engineered hardwood, luxury vinyl flooring for light to heavy commercial applications, timeless herringbone designs, and much more.
IDS 2024 marks the first of a series of Metropolitan industry events in 2024. More will roll out at select Metropolitan Floors studios and showrooms across North America this spring. These events will serve as the perfect opportunity for the A&D community to learn more about the brand and view their collections.
Explore the Kentwood engineered hardwood and Evoke luxury vinyl, laminate, rigid core, and Surge© flooring solutions manufactured and designed by Metropolitan.