Yesterday we wandered the showrooms on the 3rd, 10th and 11th floors of the Merchandise Mart. While there's not really any comparison to giants like Herman Miller, Knoll, Steelcase and Haworth (who has a wading pool in their space), we thought that the work and presentation of Bernhardt Design, Coalesse and Janus et Cie was particularly refreshing and worth noting.

Bernhardt showcased brand new work from their Global Editions line, including the Hyde chair designed by Fredrickson Stallard (pictured above), the Area table by Marc Thorpe and the Calibra sofa from Gloria and Harry Washington. Coalesse recently teamed up with the Italian furniture company Emu, distributing outdoor furniture from EMU's Advanced Collection to North America. Designed by the likes of Patricia Urquiola and Paula Navone, this collection of super durable furniture gets inspiration from things like hair clips and topiary. To celebrate this new partnership, they covered a room in thousands of specially printed green post-it notes, to give a sense of the outdoors. To a similar effect, Janus et Cie installed a fake topiary in an empty showroom just for the occasion, showing the new Miralook and PayPai Chairs, for both indoor and outdoor use.

See more from these three after the jump.

Area table by Marc Thorpe, Bernhardt

Calibra by Gloria + Harry Washington, Bernhardt

Item Sofa, Bernhardt

Re-Trouve, Patricia Urquiola, Emu via Coalesse

Ivy Collection, Emu via Coalesse

Coalesse Post-It Installation

Janus et Cie installation

Corset Chair, Janus et Cie

PaiPay Chair, Janus et Cie