November 27th, 2011
I owe my status as a LEED AP to Sholem Prasow, even though I had never met him until recently. During the economic freefall that was happening during the early months of 2009, I joined hundreds of other people across the US, Canada and other parts of the world, in each of our respective Teknion showrooms to hear him speak for an hour a week for eight weeks. His unique vocal inflections, delivered via teleconference every week, guided all of us through not only the logic and text of the documents we were studying, but the sustainable intent of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and their distinctive approach to making the built environment more sustainable. During those seminars, Mr. Prasow made it clear that sustainability is subjective; the practice of being green is different for everyone, depending on what is important to the individual or the institution. I still refer to my extensive notes taken during those classes. Along with a host of other professional colleagues attending the same seminars, I passed the LEED test on my first try with flying colors; for Mr. Prasow, that was the thirteenth time he and Teknion had given the course to their customers free of charge.
As Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Teknion, Mr. Prasow does far more than guide the uninitiated through the tangled web of institutionalized sustainable manufacturing and design practices. “For me, it’s not just about the products we make, but more the processes,” he said. “For Teknion, we work on how to articulate the value that we provide to our clients in a way that they see it and appreciate it. Really, it is about engagement with our customers. One of the things that I do is develop our internal sales training programs. What is sales in the first place but engagement?,” he said. I still associate Teknion with LEED, and always will; to me, the best form of sustainable engagement is brand association.
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November 27th, 2011
Now more than ever before in history, good design is global design. The plurality of cultures, generations and stylistic influences in modern workplaces has escalated and evolved in leaps and bounds since the office cubicle was first institutionalized across the corporate landscape. Responsible for furnishing many of those initial cubicles to offices throughout the world, Haworth recently launched a partnership in the North America with the Poltrona Frau Group; it is called the Haworth Collection. Boasting and assortment of furniture pieces made by Italian design giants Cappellini, Castelli, Cassina and Poltrona Frau, the Haworth Collection is the company’s much-needed brand extension into ancillary workspaces. What this collaboration ultimately does is inject high design and a real sense of specialness into areas that previously may have been programmed for functionality rather than style.
“The brands we have chosen to partner with are global design leaders,” said Kurt Vander Schuur, Corporate Brand Director for Haworth. “If you look at the designers who create products for these companies, they’re the best in the world. We had a very purposeful direction with the Haworth Collection. We currently have the horsepower and the bandwidth to discover great designers on our own, but we just couldn’t do it quickly enough to meet today’s corporate needs. Haworth is networked around the world and we will continue to leverage our global network to find more designers for this collection,” he said.
The Haworth Collection, along with the launching of the Integrated Palette of furniture systems at NeoCon, has marked a new stage in the A&D development of the country’s second largest furniture company. Seeking to make the critical leap from being a contract furniture provider to being a provider of complete interior spaces, Haworth’s recent introductions reveal the company’s intention to give designers freedom to create spaces as traditional or unconventional as their clients require. “We have worked really hard to make ourselves acceptable to the design community,” said Mr. Vander Shuur,” and the Haworth Collection is another example of using our global presence and our network to bring great products from around the world to the rest of the world,” he said. “We are not the same Haworth that we were ten years ago, and five years from now we will not be the same Haworth that we are today because we are trying to look to the future. Our next product meeting is next week and it’s in China; that is simply who we are today.”
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November 27th, 2011
What is design but a series of interrelated networks? For a people-focused industry like ours, one’s network is literally one’s lifeline. Like any other system of connections, a social network needs to be maintained and cultivated in order to continue to be relevant and vital to its respective community. Top on the list of mandatory events for design professionals looking to expand their network and renew old contacts is the 2011 IIDA Color Invasion, which happened last Thursday at Center 548 in Manhattan’s trendy Chelsea art gallery district. To any outsider unfamiliar with the territory, it looks a big party with a fun theme; for design veterans, it is an important opportunity to interface with hundreds of potential sources of business in one location at the same time.
Starting in 2002 with the South African-themed event called WOZA, the New York chapter of the IIDA began this annual event, which in later years was branded as the Color Invasion, to provide funds for design student scholarship awards. Using funds raised at the Color Invasion and the Leaders Breakfast, the chapter annually gives $15,000.00 or more to students who submit a package of work, which is then vetted by a committee of design professionals. Five winners and five honorable mentions are chosen, all of whom get a free membership to IIDA for one year. The IIDA’s awards program is one of many ways students can benefit from IIDA membership; from design competitions to speed mentoring events that match design students with working professionals to the IIDA’s annual student day at 200 Lexington Avenue, which includes hosted visits to showrooms as well as a panel discussions, lectures and networking, the IIDA realizes that the students of today will soon be the designers of tomorrow.
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November 27th, 2011
In every built environment, collaboration among various trades and philosophies is required not only to build the space, but also for the space to function as intended after construction. At its heart, collaboration is recursive, meaning one or more actions in the process invokes or refers to the collaborative process itself, while also requiring the participants to distinguish their new actions from their past actions. While the process may sound familiar and even simple to most of us, studying each individual step is where the inherent complexity reveals itself. The element of recursion happening within collaboration is a bit like going through a maze; one can move forward until you reach either an exit or a branching point, trying each path recursively until the goal is met. Getting out of the maze requires carefully making note of all explored paths before the right path, the one that actually gets you out of the maze, is found.
Incorporating fine art sensibilities into any collaborative process can be much trickier than proceeding without them; most artists tend to have a singular vision, and finding others to assist in carrying one’s creative torch can be a challenging task. A wonderful example of a creative, collaborative and recursive process recently opened at the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research in Houston, TX, where artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer took advantage of many different perspectives, approaches and levels of experience to create a site-specific art installation called Leonardo Dialogo. The work of art, which began with an artist-in-residency project with nanotechnology expert Dr. Mauro Ferrari soon transitioned into a permanent installation as Texas-based architectural firm PhiloWilke was fitting out the interior spaces of Dr. Ferrari’s new research facility. Drawing upon inspiration from past creative individuals as diverse as Buckminster Fuller and Leonardo da Vinci to describe the forward-thinking work happening inside the lab space, the common language of mathematics became the continuous thread that leads visitors through her amazing and creative open-ended narrative.
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November 27th, 2011
Some design firms have had a global reach and international clientele for decades. Other firms are exploring available international markets and the challenges of working on the worldwide stage for these past few difficult financial years. Whether firms have chosen to design projects out of the country to add to their bottom line or because that is simply where their clients are asking them to build, the method and process of working globally consists of an entirely different set of design and logistic challenges compared to working locally. International design work is emerging as a new normal. No longer is securing a project outside of the country an indicator of the strength or power of a design firm; many smaller design firms are now realizing working globally is the best, and in some cases, the only way for them to stay in business.
At NeoCon in Chicago this year, Joan Blumenfeld and Pamela Abalu, both from the New York office of the international powerhouse firm Perkins+Will gave an engaging overview for the uninitiated on how to capitalize on the opportunity of working globally. Beginning their presentation by listing the unique situations like time zone differences, language barriers and lack of face-to-face contact throughout most of the project, Ms. Abalu noted “At Perkins+Will, we have a process called the Go or No Go process, which involves two determinants: the country and the client. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a division of the Department of the Treasury, has a sanction list. The sanction fines range from $50,000 to $10 Million if you are doing business in a country that is on their list. Right now, there are only five countries on the list, but it fluctuates,” she said. Indeed, researching the country’s political or social stability or history of corruption is one thing, but especially where long distances are involved, securing payment for finished work requires special attention. “It is very hard to reach of overseas and tell your client that you will sue them if they don’t pay us,” said Ms. Blumenfeld. Of course, an arbitration clause in an international contract is useful if negotiations become difficult. Arbitration allows for both parties to agree in advance that an arbitrator (who is an informed third party like an attorney, judge, CPA or someone familiar with the business) will settle any disputes that happen with the project. Like litigated judgments, an arbitration order can usually be enforced in court under laws. It is also useful to note that every American embassy has an American business council that can help American design firms with legal issues. “If things go wrong,” said Ms. Blumenfeld, “it is really difficult either with arbitration or anything else, to make them right. There is a large amount of risk that you’re always taking on working overseas because things may go wrong no matter what mechanisms are in place,” she said.
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November 27th, 2011
A mark of good design, sustainable or otherwise, is that it benefits all people across society. Social responsibility is becoming a growing issue within the sustainable movement; it seeks to cultivate a more holistic view of the environment that weighs people’s needs equally with the implementation of sustainable building practices. As an inclusive movement that is concerned with not only on giving back to local communities but humanity in general, social responsibility is becoming an increasingly vital design philosophy with the potential to raise living standards and the psychic well being of people across the country and throughout the world.
This year at NeoCon in Chicago, a panel moderated by Jennifer Busch, Vice President of A&D Market Development for Interface FLOR, and consisting of John Cary, president and CEO of Next American City, Eileen Jones, principal at the Chicago office of Perkins+Will, and Prataap Patrose, director of design for Boston Redevelopment Authority, addressed how social responsible initiatives benefit design practices and how thinking in a socially responsible manner applies to the A&D community.
“Inevitably, we are all involved with some kind of design for the public good,” said Mr. Cary, after providing his personal overview of how the design industry currently addresses social responsibility and the professional advantages of working Pro Bono. Listing films like Citizen Architect, a film about Auburn University’s Rural Studio, a prolific and inspirational design-build outreach program in Alabama, and books like Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People by Emily Pilloton, he clarified that “Pro Bono does not mean for free; it means for good. There can be some transaction fees that are dependent on the individual relationship between the firm and the client.” Mr. Cary edited the book The Power of Pro Bono, a series of project case studies that illustrate the process of designing for the public good. The book is divided into six project categories: Parks, Civic, Education, Community, Health and Housing. “Those categories are generally aligned with the breakdown of the nation’s nonprofit sectors, but the categories are also aligned with the interests of most major foundations that fund a lot of these projects in part or whole,” he said. Mr. Cary called special attention to design firm Perkins+Will, who he noted, “institutionalized what was a long history of socially responsible design and they did so by naming it their Socially Responsible Initiative (SRI).”
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November 27th, 2011
It’s no secret that one of the fundamental rules of real estate is: location, location, location. When it comes to furniture, a slight variation of the same concept is used: context is everything. The showrooms at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago during NeoCon do an outstanding job of illustrating each manufacturer’s products in a clean and idealized setting with an emphasis on application, but as any New York designer will tell you, the rubber hits the road in Manhattan during First Look, the local answer to NeoCon put on by the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington Avenue.
Now in its seventh year, the aim of First Look has always been to showcase products and provide an excellent opportunity for networking with fellow industry professionals. Compression is the operative action here: Instead of lasting three days like NeoCon, it’s a one-night event distilled down to four hours; space and time is at a premium in New York, and finding the delicate balance of seeing the right people and the right product, in addition to catching up on the latest industry gossip with over 1,200 of my closest friends that attended the event, proved challenging at times. Indeed, it’s all in the timing of the event, and during the uncertainty of the last few years, keeping tabs on who is up to what, regardless of what side of the fence you are on, is more important than ever.
Upon entering 200 Lex, I was immediately greeted by an improved and more expansive building lobby, as well as some friendly folks who handed me a USB drive branded with the First Look logo. The large reception desk in the lobby has now been replaced by two smaller stations that flank the lobby walls; it was a welcome design change, and the USB I received was filled with photos of products that I was about to see. This was an elegant touch with great forethought and designers in mind; it was great to see this building, the second largest building in the US that caters to the contract industry, keeping up with the times and engaging the visitors to the event.
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November 27th, 2011
In this multifaceted age of design, nothing is off limits. Both clients and designers now have the technology and the capability to either source or create objects and spaces previously out of reach or simply unfeasible. Operating in this wide-open creative playing field is Brian Graham, a San Francisco-based designer whose clients include Knoll, Decca Contract, Geiger, Martin Brattrud and many others. Mr. Graham’s designs are neither outlandish nor overly conservative, but rather a fresh expression of familiar furniture forms and arrangements. Using carefully considered details that are driven by each individual furniture application with the intention to augment and improve, each final design further identifies Mr. Graham as a designer for interior designers.
“Much of my work goes back to being an interior designer first,” he said. “I began in this industry by working for Gensler in Los Angeles, as well as San Francisco; while there, I went from doing corporate work to retail and showrooms, eventually getting into product design. I still consider myself an interior designer and often think about how a piece of furniture fits into an entire project or into a single room. It’s really about holistic solutions. Many of the pieces I create are relatively understated because I understand that they play only one role in a vast context. For me, interior designers are the best furniture designers because they understand the application. It’s not just about theory; it’s about use and function. One has to ask questions about each intended audience and consider fit, finish and performance for each application.”
As an applications-driven designer, Mr. Graham noted, “I am not the person that a client would approach for a trendy fashion-forward piece. I’m pragmatic, and in that respect what I do is always driven by function. I keep looking for how interior designers are trying to solve problems spatially, and from that perspective, discovering if there is an opportunity for furniture or a related product to help complete the solution.”
Mr. Graham’s research and discovery process is simple, thoughtful and responsive. “My practice is like an infinity symbol,” he said. “It’s about reading, then reacting. If I am working on a particular product and then I meet with other designers that I have a good relationship with, that interaction and dialogue creates a reaction that will influence my work; it’s a continuous process, really.”
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November 27th, 2011
The themes, ideas and products that were introduced during this year’s NeoCon are important early indicators of how, where and why the workplace is moving in its current direction; some of the many delights of this year’s NeoCon were: a state of relaxed collaboration and engagement with the Gather collection by Allsteel; an unapologetic return to beauty with Davis and a showroom containing only new introductions; seminars that showed designers how to expand their global reach, and the establishment of an entirely new design tool by the name of Seeyond that has a powerful potential to shape interior spaces in a completely customized and affordable way.
Beginning with the latter of NeoCon’s many delights was Seeyond’s fourteen foot wall, a structure echoing a Richard Serra sculpture was situated on the ground floor of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago; many people may have taken it for granted because in many ways it looked like a traditional drywall installation. In fact, most of the wall was made with precisely built and individually shaped modules of corrugated plastic that were held in place with magnets; the entire structure took only a few hours to install. This sustainably-minded company has created a simple to use but powerful iPad application that allows designers to quickly and easily create an array of custom shaped freestanding walls, enclosures or surfaces for their interior projects. Each drawing from the app can be dropped directly into drawing plans and is the translation tool between manufacturer and designer. With the incorporation of LED lighting within the structure, even more design versatility becomes available. Seeyond delivers on the promise of custom organic shaped design within the strict parameters of budget, time and performance required for commercial interiors; it won a Best of NeoCon gold award for architectural products, as well as a Best of NeoCon award for innovation.
The jury for Best of NeoCon has a tough but rewarding job (I ought to know; this was my fourth time serving on the jury). Beginning four days before the start of the fair, over 40 interior designers, facility managers and design resource librarians from around the country gather, and this year we reviewed over 300 products. Although it is a great privilege to be invited to participate on the jury, several of us still had to squeeze a certain amount of our day job duties while we were reviewing what was submitted by manufacturers. {image} To add obligation to privilege (or insult to injury), many jurors arriving by air to Chicago were delayed by severe weather on the ground. Fortunately, it provided for picturesque views along the river.
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November 27th, 2011
Thirty years ago, the world’s consciousness was just starting to get acquainted with terms like “Global Village” but we had not begun to live in one yet; technology was just beginning to show clues of its world-shrinking potential, and many global corporations were not yet aware of how to leverage interior design to optimize their business objectives.
At that point in history, back in 1981, a three-person office called M Moser Associates was founded in Hong Kong. Beginning with the objective of offering international-standard and client-focused design services, the firm has grown and evolved into a global powerhouse with a staff of over 650 people in twelve offices worldwide. The firm’s interior design staff represents just one facet of a spectrum of complementary design expertise that includes workplace strategy, pre-lease services, architecture, MEP engineering, IT infrastructure, procurement and even construction. The firm is also building momentum in the area of specialized, engineering-intensive work facilities such as laboratories, data centers and trading floors.
Founded by California native Moira Moser, each of the firm’s offices in North America, Europe and Asia is celebrating the businesses’ 30th anniversary with most of the events hosted by Ms. Moser herself. In addition to being an occasion to thank the firm’s many partners and clients, each celebration is also an opportunity for the offices to look forward in a more integrated way. Each firm is holding a series of staff workshops that cross-pollinate technical information and historical lessons that have been learned throughout the life of the firm, ultimately strengthening how each office delivers design to their worldwide clientele. M Moser’s New York office kicked off the celebrations, and Ms. Moser was kind enough to sit down with officeinsight for a look at the past, present and future of the design profession.
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