Exhibits are no more obligated to be made from fabric and laminate than works of art are marble and canvas. That was a key insight CDI World (dba CDI USA Inc.) had when it designed a conceptual exhibit demonstrating how it might shrink the carbon footprints of its trade show stands and showroom displays. To achieve this, CDI took inspiration from Japan's Zen Buddhist rock gardens, which are renowned for their natural – and thus sustainable – components. "The hardest part was conveying that this environment was a representation of such a traditional cultivated area, using materials that most consider lackluster," said Ryan Hooper, president of Bendbox Design LLC, which designed the intangible exhibit. What CDI crafted out of pixels was a landscape that could theoretically be made of bio-based adhesives, hemp rope, paper, and more. Guests would access the structure through a Torii Gate, the typical entryway to Zen gardens, fabricated from cardboard wrapped with old newspaper.

Once inside, visitors would stroll on a main road made of hemp rope whose striated texture would resemble the elegant raked-sand pathways common to Zen retreats. Large objects made of cardstock would mimic shrubs, while grass would be fashioned from recycled material. Stylized trees – based on a hybrid of twisted pines and Japanese maples and made of crumpled packing paper with aluminum frames – towered over 14 pyramid-shaped mountains, while deer composed of corrugated cardboard wandered throughout the expanse. "This design seems unbelievably fantastical," said one Exhibit Design Awards judge, "but it's absolutely achievable."

"The possible's slow fuse is lit by the imagination," Emily Dickinson wrote. CDI's imagination of what an eco-friendly booth could be achieved, even in hypothetical form, a bliss and beauty that were anything but conceptual. E