Hosted in Fisher & Paykel’s beautifully renovated showroom, it was an evening that perfectly captured the energy and inspiration of KBIS 2026. With so much to explore, three days hardly felt like enough. This year’s KBIS and IBS show featured more than 2,250 exhibitors spanning 1.15 million square feet, offering an extraordinary look at what’s next in design and construction.

Fortunately, for those who got to KBIS or not, on March 25th the NKBA Manhattan Chapter provided insights from four attendees with their recap, The KBIS Moments that Mattered… What the show floor told us that the press releases did not.

Ellen Lopez, of EL Design Studio, chapter events chair, brought together a blue-ribbon panel of experts: Creative Engineer, Elle H-Millard, CKD, CLIPP of Xperiencellc, joined us from Indiana; Sarah Robertson, founder of award-winning Studio Dearborn of Westchester County was accompanied by her son Owen, who provided a next-gen viewpoint; and Long Island based interior designer, Rose Ott, AKBD, Rose Ott Design, completed the stellar cast.

The panel categorized their findings into nine themes:  

1 Infrastructure, not theater 

2 Wellness beyond marketing

3 Truth of materials

4 The beauty of imperfection

5 Confident, intentional color

6 Invisible universal luxury

7 Technology that disappears

8 Kitchen absorbed into the whole home

9 Personalization at scale

With 29 slides illustrating products and concepts along with the panelist’s observations, attendees went away with a taste of what was shown at Design Week and what they may be seeing in the showrooms and on the home front very soon.