PRESENTED BY

 FRIDAY APRIL 9, 2021

The Upfront

Herman Miller Doubles Down on Gaming

Attention marketers. Herman Miller has officially introduced “influencers” to the world of contract furniture - or in this case, gaming furniture.

Herman Miller Wednesday announced that popular streamer Tim Betar (known as "Timthetatman" professionally) will be the brand's very first global Brand Ambassador. As an ambassador, Timthetatman will actively share his experiences using Herman Miller products and serve as yet another critical touchpoint between the prominent furniture company and the gaming community.

Tim the Tatman

"This is a massive milestone for our team," says Jon Campbell, Director of Gaming at Herman Miller. "Since launching our first batch of gaming products in July, we have been incredibly humbled by the number of people who have chosen Herman Miller for their setups. We are thrilled to celebrate a partnership with one of the most influential and respected people in the gaming community, especially one that has been such a pioneer in this space."

"I'm extremely excited about this partnership because it shows that a big company like Herman Miller cares about what us gamers have to say," says Betar. "After streaming and sitting for long periods of time, I realized the importance of quality products and investing in them for your health. Once I switched to Herman Miller for gaming, I could immediately feel the difference!"

Timthetatman has been streaming since 2012, gaining millions of followers drawn to his inspiring skills, upbeat personality, and entertaining banter. Streaming popular games including World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Overwatch, and Fortnite, his skills and interest in a wide variety of games appeals to thousands of viewers every day. "Tim is one of the most entertaining content creators in the industry today," says Campbell. "I have always been inspired by Tim's decision to sit in Herman Miller chairs for almost his entire streaming career. This relationship is truly authentic, and we're excited to celebrate Tim's commitment to Herman Miller."

Knoll Introduces Powdura® Eco Powder Coatings, First Sustainable Powder Coating on the Market

Knoll, Inc. announced the introduction of Powdura® Eco powder coatings in partnership with Sherwin-Williams Company.

Knoll has been known for environmental stewardship and sustainable design, including innovative powder coating technology and finishing processes, since the 1980s as a means to reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are a hazard to indoor air quality and an indirect greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

The Knoll-Sherwin-Williams partnership reflects Knoll’s interest in advances in powder coating technology and furthering the use of powder products. As part of the development process, Sherwin-Williams conducted a Life Cycle Analysis of Powdura Eco that shows greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Commenting on the introduction of Powdura Eco, Benjamin Pardo, Knoll design director, said, “We’re proud to continue our commitment to sustainable design through our partnership with Sherwin-Williams. Knoll has been a design leader for the office and home for over eighty years — our ongoing work to maintain a sustainably sourced manufacturing and supply chain helps to ensure that our customers can meet their sustainability goals.”

Effective mid-March, Knoll has begun to replace its current powder coating formulation for Bright White with Powdura Eco Bright White for most painted systems and storage products, with a majority of core standard paint colors to follow.

The Powdura Eco formulation, which includes 25% pre-consumer recycled content, replicates the aesthetic appearance of the predecessor material while reducing product embodied carbon. Going forward, Knoll plans to utilize the Powdura Eco technology for a majority of its powder coatings needs. “With Powdura Eco, we expect to reduce the carbon footprint associated with powder coating by 16 percent,” added Yolanda Pagano, Knoll Director, Corporate Sustainability and Environment. “This initiative advances our commitment to sustainable design by addressing waste and climate change challenges and advances our sustainability leadership.” 

Herman Miller joins the Future Forum to redesign work at home and in the office

Herman Miller is joining the Future Forum, the Slack-backed consortium that's helping executives at leading companies deliver on the transformation needed to thrive in the post-pandemic world.

Herman Miller will become a founding partner of the Future Forum, collaborating on initiatives that help leaders rethink the way they design both the spaces and processes used to enable employee collaboration. Specific areas of focus will include:

• The future of the office: Whether it's a return to headquarters, sustained work from home, or a combination of the two, the physical spaces companies use for work will need to look fundamentally different. Herman Miller and the Future Forum will work together to develop concrete solutions that companies can implement to meet the evolving needs and expectations of their employees.

• Creativity and innovation: The spaces used for work are only part of the story—the processes and procedures people work with are just as important. Herman Miller and the Future Forum will develop playbooks helping companies establish new methods for fostering employee creativity and innovation.

"Designing the optimal employee experience is all about balancing diverse needs for individual focus with expectations for collaboration and communication," says Joseph White, the director of Workplace Futures and Insight for Herman Miller. "In the post-pandemic world, this redesign will be a critical competitive differentiator for companies. The best and brightest employees will seek out companies that help them cultivate balance, offering both support with home office setups and corporate office spaces that are optimized for choice."

"Thriving in the new world of work depends on giving employees flexibility in how, when and where they work," says Helen Lee Kupp, the director of product strategy and partnerships at the Future Forum. "We're thrilled to partner with Herman Miller to help companies evolve the way they think about office space, technology and work processes so that they can thrive in the new world of work." Herman Miller joins other Future Forum partners, including the Boston Consulting Group, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Fortune magazine and Stanford professor Pamela Hinds.

Steelcase eyes home segment as growth opportunity

For many years, Steelcase has been known for its commercial office lineup, mostly in office chairs, but also desks, workstations and storage units such as lateral files and book cases. In addition, the manufacturer produces a line of contract grade furniture for classrooms and health care facilities.

But one of its biggest growth areas of late has been furniture for the home — you guessed it — home office, a category that also has been popular among residential furniture resources.

In fact the company said it has seen a 500% increase in sales in the category, which it sells online through its store.steelcase.com website, during its most recent full fiscal year between March 2020 and February 2021.

The e-commerce platform is not new. The company has had it for about 15 years, primarily serving the employees of contract accounts that wanted the Steelcase products in their homes.

But as demand for home office and student desks grew during the pandemic due people working and studying from home, so did demand for its products.

That demand has come from employees of Steelcase business clients, but also others that had learned about the Steelcase line through word of mouth and online searches, a still popular way to buy home office furniture.

“We have seen tremendous activity since March of last year,” said Rebecca Steketee, director of e-commerce at Steelcase, noting that the platform offers consumers a way to seamlessly order the product. “There has certainly been a spike since COVID-19.”

The product on the site is largely suitable not only for commercial, but also for residential use. While seating is the largest category with desk, conference table, and guest chairs and benches, there are also a mix of desks including some executive style desks and sit-to-stand desks available in multiple size and finish options.

Digital Nomads Influencing Design: Empty Lobbies to Community Hubs

Digital nomads are those who have the unique ability to work from anywhere. While we often imagine the traditional digital nomad working from an exotic tropical destination, a new form of digital nomadism is emerging—one where people are not wandering far from home. Today, we see a wave of digital nomads whose lifestyles don’t necessarily allow them to work from paradise. Instead, they’re setting up at a coffee shop down the street or a community park with access to WiFi. With the rise of the “work from anywhere” movement, fewer people will return to the office in favor of working from home permanently and becoming digital nomads themselves.

Digital nomadism continues to blur the line between live, work, and play. As our spaces continue to adapt to our future needs, we’ll likely see more collaborative, communal zones where people can relax, shop, and work. Additionally, as more companies give their employees the option to work from home indefinitely, there is a new opportunity to transform empty offices into spaces that support various activities.

Charles and Ray Eames were masters of innovation

A new book explores the interplay of design and music, arguing that iteration and remixing is essential to both.

Design and music go hand in hand, and the ties that bind them are deeper than album packaging or gaming soundtracks. Underlying each practice is a unifying creative mindset. One group says observation, another says listening. One says prototyping, another says demoing. Remixing has become the essential building block for both arts in the digital era. And iteration is essential to any great outcome.

In an episode of the podcast Song Exploder, Wilco founder Jeff Tweedy broke down how he works: “I’ll do a vocal melody based just on sounds . . . And I will sit and listen to the first line over and over, and sketch things on my notepad, and try to figure out [lyrics] that have the same syllables, the same meter, until I get something that’s satisfying. And then I’ll sing it.” Words that at first might sound random unpack a greater meaning as a narrative unfolds. Eventually he passes on the demo to the band, but well before the song is completed. This leaves room for further discovery and development.

Tweedy’s revelation is reminiscent of a famous design duo and their methodical process.

Charles and Bernice “Ray” Eames were two of the most influential American designers in the 20th century. Working primarily in architecture and furniture design, the couple followed the modernist style but also pushed back against the heavy-handedness of many modernists by introducing simple elegance and a hint of whimsy. Their office created some of the most iconic pieces in the history of furniture: tall and cheerful stools with steep legs, beautiful lounges with plush leather seats, and perfectly crafted chairs made of bent plywood.

5 Home Office Design Trends

The 2021 design theme trends emerged as a result of the feelings, emotions, and desires brought on by the isolation felt from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the forefront of it all is the intimate relationship people now have with their home workspace—wherever that may be.

With seemingly unlimited opinions about how to not just survive, but thrive in the work from anywhere environment, the most popular design trends are a reflection of a vast array of perspectives. Words like optimism, escape, simplicity, comfort, and vibrancy capture how the current working climate is making people think—and how they are designing their workspaces.

With more time spent working from home, there is an increased desire to blend the home and office together—and a conscious attempt to create a more balanced and harmonious experience. Whether you have a dedicated room for a home office, or an office nook in an open living space, a little design can go a long way—helping you maintain your focus and productivity while working from home.

Here are 5 inspiring ideas on how to integrate your home and office into a cohesive design that provides comfort, renewal, and hope with materials, finishes, and colors that suit your personal style.

JPMorgan To 'Significantly Reduce' Global Office Footprint, CEO Says

The largest bank in the U.S. by assets is getting smaller — at least in terms of the real estate it occupies.

JPMorgan Chase will "significantly reduce" its office footprint in the coming years as it overhauls the design and usage of its workplaces, CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders. Though he acknowledged some limitations to remote work, Dimon said that up to 10% of the bank's employees "in very specific roles" will work from home permanently.

“Remote work will change how we manage our real estate,” Dimon said in the letter. “We will quickly move to a more open seating arrangement, in which digital tools will help manage seating arrangements, as well as needed amenities, such as conference room space."

With the new layout and seating style, JPMorgan will only need 60 desks for every 100 employees, Dimon estimated. The plan could come as a surprise in light of the bank being among the first major companies that attempted to bring workers back in September before a second surge in coronavirus cases scuttled that idea. JPMorgan employs about 255,000 people worldwide.

The bank's reduction of space could have major market implications in New York, where the bank is the largest private occupier of office real estate, Commercial Observer reports.

"A 1% change in JPMorgan's occupancy means a lot more than 50 startups," SquareFoot President Michael Colacino, whose company focuses on tenant representation exclusively, said on a Bisnow podcast in September. "The startups produce a lot of innovation ... [but JPMorgan] occupies tens of millions of square feet around the country. The focus on Facebook and Google, it's all kind of artificial, because they are not the ones that drive office demand in cities like New York."

Everything We Thought We Knew About Office Space Use Before COVID Was WronG

A year into the pandemic, it’s easy to look back and remember offices being these bustling hubs that were fully utilized before COVID-19 struck.

But that’s not the case, according to a new report from VergeSense, which measures more than 40 million square feet of real estate globally.

VergeSense found that offices were only 30% utilized pre-pandemic. In Jan 2021, the average utilization was at 7.9%.

At the same time, there has been a 15% increase in the use of office space for collaboration during the pandemic, according to VergeSense. While 20% of overall utilization was for collaborative work in early 2020, 23% of overall utilization was for collaborative work in early 2021.

Before the pandemic, 83% of office space was allocated to individual work and 17% was dedicated to collaborative work. However, collaborative spaces were 25% more utilized than those for individual work. Only 28% of space dedicated to individual work was utilized pre-pandemic, while 35% of space dedicated to collaborative work was used pre-pandemic.

VergeSense says that space allocation was designed for 9-to-5 employees who had no option to work elsewhere. The ideal situation going forward is to create a system where individual workspace can be variable. “Offices will likely double down on optimized-yet-safe reallocation of desk space in order to assign the remaining real estate to space types that might be more useful—or better, especially attractive for employees returning to the office,” according to VergeSense.

There are signs that companies are already considering alternative strategies, such as hot desks. Green Street, for example, predicts more hot desking and shared arrangements, with 10% to 15% of desks expected to head in this direction.

The binary choices and multiple outcomes of flexible working

A year of unnecessarily binary conversation about work leads inevitably to this. A stupid question. Is Big Tech going off work from home? Betteridge’s Law takes care of that, just as it did another question from 12 months ago. Even though the article is slightly better than the headline, the insistence that the only two choices we have are home or office remains.

The dissonance inherent in such articles seems to arise from the fact that organisations aren’t choosing between just two options. They aren’t “going off working from home” any more than they were going “fully remote” in the first place.

And so, failure to comply with the binary choice set out by the world’s new model army of workplace experts leads to headlines about how Google is ‘rejigging’ remote work (it isn’t), not to mention the zang tumb tumb response to Goldman Sachs’ rejection of the ‘new normal’. Goldman Sachs has a toxic workplace culture regardless of its setting, and even that might serve a purpose according to Scott Galloway in this conversation with Bruce Daisley.

One of the people who could have cut through all of this is Lucy Kellaway, but she had already taken the rather wonderful decision to train as a teacher. She popped up briefly in the FT last May to remind people that they needed to work together because they were still human beings, but her bright prose and ability to cut through the crap has been badly missed.

How the Pandemic Has Jump-Started Creativity

WeTransfer recently released its 2020 Ideas Report, which showcases the effects COVID-19 has had on creativity. At a time when the economy, employment rates, and overall morale were down, the report found a reason for hope—nearly half (45.3 percent) of the 35,000 creatives polled claimed that they experienced more creative ideas during the pandemic than before.

Which begs the question: How do we replicate the good that has come out of the pandemic and keep it going for the industry over the long term? ThinkLab sat down with business leaders within—and outside—the interiors industry to understand the shifts companies made to remain relevant in these changing times.

Relying on creativity to keep business goingIn many ways, creativity has been the thing that has kept businesses open. Think of all the schools that transitioned to e-learning, the restaurants that shifted their indoor dining outdoors, or even the alcohol distilleries that switched operations from producing alcohol to making hand sanitizer. Creativity spurred success, and the most successful were those who found unique ways to remain relevant in our new, digital world.

How COVID Will Change the Office

Preparing an office for the return of employees in the age of COVID isn’t a simple endeavor.

“It takes planning,” says Tiffany English, CREW Network (Commercial Real Estate Women) president and a principal at architectural firm Ware Malcomb. “People need to make sure that they’re doing their research and understanding what the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines provide and how that applies to an office environment.”

There are basic steps to create a safer environment. English thinks six-foot distancing and one-way traffic signs help make people feel safer. Technology is also essential as companies rely on apps to ensure that guests are checking in and maintaining distancing within a space.

Once the world returns to normal, English sees signage and tracking apps eventually going away. But the pandemic will create some long-term shifts in how frequently people are going into the office. In the future, flexibility and mobility will be at a premium. Still, she thinks there will always be a need for the office.

“I believe people still want to be around each other as much as they enjoy the flexibility and ability to work from home whenever they want,” English says. “There is still that human desire to connect, whether you want to be in the office once a week, once a month or once a quarter.”

English says companies will adopt hubs and flex workspaces for collaboration, meeting and socializing. But large urban offices won’t disappear.

Technology, Data And Wellness: Creating The New Sustainable Workplace

The idea behind what makes an office “green” has completely changed in the last few years. And for the better. What used to be largely a discussion on materials and systems has given way to a much more holistic dialogue on technology, data and sophisticated ideas about employee health and wellness. In other words, we’ve moved past selecting bamboo flooring in order to secure LEED points and are hurtling toward a new type of office that is truly sustainable in every sense of the word—eco-friendly, cost-efficient and health-conscious.

Better Utilization, Less Space

After a year of uncertainty, one thing that does seem certain is that most companies will continue to have employees working from home at least some of the time. That leaves an opportunity for technology and data to make this new hybrid work environment viable and more sustainable. The drastic change to in-person versus remote work also means that the occupancy and sensory studies companies conducted pre-pandemic are no longer accurate. Based on the current data we have from a sampling of clients, we are looking at an entirely new mindset surrounding the utilization of space. Our clients are becoming much more surgical and cognizant of space requirements. And, for the most part, no space should have a singular function—it should be multi-modal. The bottom line: we don’t need more space, we need better space. 

Many of our clients are beginning to see that instead of remodeling 100 existing locations, it makes much more sense to look at consolidation. One of our clients in Arizona initially hired us to design a new 300,000-SF building to accommodate their growth. Through a very collaborative process, we helped them see that, thanks to a hybrid work model, they actually had plenty of existing real estate; it just wasn’t being utilized efficiently. The client is going to continue tracking sensor analytics in their reimagined workplace model as more employees come back to the office so they will have clear, hard data to support future change and growth strategies. 

After Pandemic, Shrinking Need for Office Space Could Crush LandlorDS

As office vacancies climb to their highest levels in decades with businesses giving up office space and embracing remote work, the real estate industry in many American cities faces a potentially grave threat.

Businesses have discovered during the pandemic that they can function with nearly all of their workers out of the office, an arrangement many intend to continue in some form. That could wallop the big property companies that build and own office buildings — and lead to a sharp pullback in construction, steep drops in office rents, fewer people frequenting restaurants and stores, and potentially perilous declines in the tax revenue of city governments and school districts.

In only a year, the market value of office towers in Manhattan, home to the country’s two largest central business districts, has plummeted 25 percent, according to city projections released on Wednesday, contributing to an estimated $1 billion drop-off in property tax revenue.

JPMorgan Chase, Ford Motor, Salesforce, Target and more are giving up expensive office space, and others are considering doing so. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the largest private-sector employer in New York City, wrote in a letter to shareholders this week that remote work would “significantly reduce our need for real estate.” For every 100 employees, he said, his bank “may need seats for only 60 on average.”

And just as Coca-Cola’s profits would take a seismic hit if consumers abruptly cut back on sodas, owners of office buildings, many of which are owned by pension funds, insurance companies, individuals and other investors, could be pummeled if many businesses rent less space.

“The pandemic has proven that work from home is viable,” said Jonathan Litt, chief investment officer of Land & Buildings, a real estate investment firm that has taken a bearish view of the New York office market. “It’s not going away; businesses are going to adjust, and office real estate is going to take it on the chin during that adjustment period.”

Across the country, the vacancy rate for office buildings in city centers has steadily climbed over the past year to reach 16.4 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield, the highest in about a decade. That number could climb further, even as vaccinations allow some people to go back to work, if companies keep giving up office space because of hybrid or fully remote work.

Sublet Space Jumps in Manhattan

Even before COVID-19, sublease space was growing.

Sublease space rose 4.2 MSF between Q4 2018 and Q1 2020, according to the Manhattan Sublease Market Overview from Savills. In Q1 2020, 26.2% of available space in Manhattan was sublet space. By comparison, sublet space hit a high 44.2% of total available space during the Dot Com and 9/11 crisis.

Once COVID-19 hit, the sublet space increased dramatically, jumping 61.7%, while available direct space has surged by 50%.

“Despite the swell of newly available sublease space, a larger wave of recently added direct available space has led to the significant rise in overall availability,” Savills stated in the report.

There was 22 MSF of sublet space available in Q1 2021. That is the highest mark recorded in the 21st century and accounts for 27.6% of the total available space. In 2009, there was 30.3% of available space. In addition, average sublet asking rents decreased 4.9% year-over-year in Manhattan.

56 leases of greater than 50,000 square feet signed since Q2 2020. Eight were sublease transactions, while 31 were renewals, according to Savills.

While TAMI industry tenants accounted for 39.2% of newly added and expected sublet blocks, financial services and insurance and retailers and luxury brands were next with 25.4% and 10.8%, respectively. Overall, subleases account for 11.4% of leasing activity compared to 27.6% of available space. As this is happening, the asking rent spread between direct ($82) and sublet ($60.9) space widened to 25.8%.

The evidence is in: working from home is a failed experiment

I have a client who runs a business that was not considered to be “essential” and therefore had to shut his doors during the height of the pandemic and send his employees home to work. This went on for a few months. When, last summer, things started to relax, he called everyone back to the office. No exceptions.

“Working from home isn’t an option in my business,” he told me. “I don’t buy into it. I want my people here.”

Is he out of touch? Perhaps. But this point of view is shared by more than a few clients of mine. Mostly, they fit a similar demographic: older, set in their ways, long time in business, family-owned companies. It’s obvious that most companies will need to offer work from home options in the future. But what’s more obvious, at least to me, is that so far, this has been a failed experiment. And, sooner or later, many small businesses are going to come around to thinking like my client.

If you don’t believe me, then just consider the results of a recent, large study from Microsoft.

According to the study, almost two-thirds of the more than 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets said that they were “craving” (yes, craving) more in-person time with their teams and 37% of the global workforce complained that their companies were “asking too much of them” when out of the office.

About 54% of these people feel overworked and 39% are simply exhausted. Thanks to these new working from home arrangements, meetings are significantly longer, “chats” have risen 45% and 41m more emails were sent in one month alone (February 2021) compared with the same month last year (remember when email was supposed to be “dead”?).

While older workers and bosses seem to be handling things in stride (61% of them say they are “thriving” right now, a number that clocks in at a whopping 23 percentage points higher than those without decision-making authority), the younger generations – specifically the Gen-Zers (aged between 18 and 25) – are struggling to balance work with life and are simply more exhausted than their counterparts. They reported difficulties feeling engaged or excited about work, getting a word in during meetings and bringing new ideas to the table.

Small Coworking Outfits In Dire Straits As ‘Funny Money’-Backed Competitors Prepare For Comeback

The major players in the New York City coworking market have buckled under the stress of the coronavirus pandemic, giving back millions of square feet, needing cash infusions or restructuring.

But Knotel, IWG and WeWork all appear poised to exist in a post-Covid landscape where workplace flexibility is expected to be key. Smaller operators — the backbone of the coworking industry — have a far less certain future. Unlike the giants of the coworking world, these entrepreneurs do not have a cash cushion or an institutional real estate name to break their falls.

“Us mom-and-pops have worked so hard to have the small piece that we had, and we’re giving back a much larger piece of what we’ve had now,” said Primary co-founder and CEO Lisa Skye, whose company has given back a quarter of its portfolio as it goes through the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. “For the larger operators, it’s a less significant impact.” 

In Manhattan, small operators gave back a total of 180K SF in the 12 months ending in March, according to Colliers, a figure that doesn’t include the many operators that popped up in Brooklyn over the past decade, trying to attract the borough’s many startups and entrepreneurs.

While that number pales in comparison to what operators with portfolios larger than 100K SF have given up, it has left a mark.

Traditional Office Is Merging With Coworking As Dallas Gears Up For Inbound Workers

Once considered rivals, coworking concepts and office landlords in Dallas are finding common terrain as the pandemic begins to wind down — namely, with the formation of partnerships that offer tenants the benefits of both coworking and traditional office spaces.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, developer and building owner Westdale Real Estate Investment and Management announced a partnership with coworking brand WorkSuites to create a flexible office solution that gives Westdale tenants access to subscription coworking services at 15 WorkSuites outlets at discounted rates.

Known as Citywide Workpass, the program allows remote employees participating within Westdale to receive coworking options while also receiving steep discounts on various offerings, such as access to meeting and training rooms, coworking memberships and private office rentals.

Why flexible space is making a comeback

Last year flexible space appeared to be a high-profile casualty of the pandemic, but it’s coming back strong as the world adopts new styles of work

Flexible office space has had quite a ride.

The coworking boom that sat hipsters and bankers on adjacent stools at office coffee bars ended abruptly last year when the pandemic emptied out offices across the globe.

By the second quarter last year, flexible space leasing activity was down 92 percent from a year earlier, according to JLL. The flexibility that made such spaces so attractive to companies also meant that in times of crisis it was one of the hardest hit.

But just as quickly it’s making a comeback, spurred by landlords adjusting to preferences for hybrid work environments, a nod to the work-from-home policies adopted in 2020. A JLL survey of 2,000 office workers revealed that two thirds want to work from different locations post-crisis.

“This is more meaningful than a shifting of deckchairs,” says Ben Munn, managing director of flex space at JLL. “Companies and investors are taking a different view on flex space entirely and are willing to invest because they see this as a bigger proportion of the overall office market than it is currently.”

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shares his thoughts on remote work

In his latest annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon offered thoughts on how the US economy will boom after the pandemic thanks to excess savings, huge deficit spending, a new potential infrastructure bill, and the success of Covid-19 vaccinations. He also shared some thoughts on remote work.

The pandemic accelerated changes to the ways in which we work and that momentum will continue, he wrote. While many JPMorgan Chase employees, particularly, those in Chase bank branches, will continue to work in-person, Dimon says the company will continue have a mix of in-office, hybrid, and fully remote workers, with perhaps up to 10% of the company’s workforce—or about 25,000 employees— in “very specific roles” working full time from home.

JPMorgan was able to quickly set up employees from call centers to trading desks to do their work from home, Dimon notes, saying, “We learned that we could function virtually with Zoom and Cisco and maintain productivity, at least in the short run.” But he also notes that remote work has some “serious weaknesses.”

The Air Collection from Concertex

Concertex introduces the Air collection that includes the future of performance driven upholstery. The brand has always been dedicated to performance products and groundbreaking technologies; this collection, however, is a little extra in all the right places. The softness and tactile look of the coated fabrics and wovens included in the collection is something new for the performance driven line. The world is craving comfy cozy, and at the same time demanding durable, safe products that can withstand harsh cleaning compounds. Concertex is proud to introduce the best of both with the Air collection.

Collection highlights include a vinyl upholstery pattern that strikingly replicates the warmth of a woven (Castle), Indoor/outdoor coated fabrics and wovens (Nappa and Scatter), and two new Tekloom patterns that fuse a woven product with the strength of a coated fabric (Wander and Twist). The colorways offered include soft, welcoming neutrals and comforting tones. Brilliant shades of green, calming blues, and pops of vivacious hues expand the breadth of the Concertex line. The collection was designed to accommodate the durability needed in healthcare design, is sophisticated enough for the hip office, and carefully curated for the in-between.

A collection motivated by new beginnings and fresh starts. A collection that embodies the brilliance of performance and elegance of design. A collection focused on the future of upholstery. Built for longevity and designed with intention, the Air collection is resiliently beautiful.

OE1, Herman Miller's new office line, is the anti cubicle

COVID-19 changed everything about work. And no one knows exactly what the office of tomorrow will look like—not even the storied American design brand Herman Miller, a company that has been furnishing offices for decades. Which is why the Herman Miller’s latest furniture collection is designed precisely for uncertainty.

Called OE1, the new line is colorful, modular, and adaptable. Instead of being prescriptive, with interlocking pieces that are architected to convince people to work one way, just about everything in OE1 is made to move. The collection is available now.

The ideas behind OE1 predate COVID-19. The collection is the result of years of development, driven by an international research project, in which the team interviewed everyone from office managers to sci-fi writers about the future of work. But as the collection came to a crest in 2020, amid a rise of remote work in response to the global pandemic, this future-forward design became a much more urgent one.

Employers who are tentatively reopening offices this year will be juggling shifting head counts, temporarily or permanently. And any top-down view of office design will struggle to adapt to the day-to-day needs of employees. The solution, according to Herman Miller, is to empower individual workers. Give them furniture that they can repurpose at will, grouping up temporary work spaces as teams require. Don’t just put a desk chair on wheels; turn the entire office into something more mobile.

“I often say with a mixture of pride and sorrow that Herman Miller invented the cubicle . . . probably envisioning a utopia, and it became something different,” says Andi Owen, CEO at Herman Miller. “We envision a future where [modular, flexible] furniture styles are the ones that are most dominant, and the traditional, walking into cubicles, is going to continue to decline.”

Employers who are tentatively reopening offices this year will be juggling shifting head counts, temporarily or permanently. And any top-down view of office design will struggle to adapt to the day-to-day needs of employees. The solution, according to Herman Miller, is to empower individual workers. Give them furniture that they can repurpose at will, grouping up temporary work spaces as teams require. Don’t just put a desk chair on wheels; turn the entire office into something more mobile.

“I often say with a mixture of pride and sorrow that Herman Miller invented the cubicle . . . probably envisioning a utopia, and it became something different,” says Andi Owen, CEO at Herman Miller. “We envision a future where [modular, flexible] furniture styles are the ones that are most dominant, and the traditional, walking into cubicles, is going to continue to decline.”

Employers who are tentatively reopening offices this year will be juggling shifting head counts, temporarily or permanently. And any top-down view of office design will struggle to adapt to the day-to-day needs of employees. The solution, according to Herman Miller, is to empower individual workers. Give them furniture that they can repurpose at will, grouping up temporary work spaces as teams require. Don’t just put a desk chair on wheels; turn the entire office into something more mobile.

“I often say with a mixture of pride and sorrow that Herman Miller invented the cubicle . . . probably envisioning a utopia, and it became something different,” says Andi Owen, CEO at Herman Miller. “We envision a future where [modular, flexible] furniture styles are the ones that are most dominant, and the traditional, walking into cubicles, is going to continue to decline.”

Unika Vaev Introduces New Exciting Products from Instyle

Ecoustic® Ceiling Edit – Flat acoustic ceiling tiles available in five cut-out designs.

The Ecoustic® Ceiling Edit are highly functional and decorative drop-in ceiling tiles. The Edit ceiling panels can fit in any existing T-Grid/drop-in suspended ceiling systems. The Ceiling Edit Tiles are ideal to feature across an entire ceiling or in a combination with Unika Vaev’s Ceiling Flats.

The Ecoustic® Ceiling Edit Tiles are available in five designs; Angle, Code, Data, Dot or Ray, and can be integrated with LED lights. The ceiling tiles are available in two sound-absorbing thicknesses; 0.47” tiles available in 15 colors and 0.94” tiles available in five neutral colors.
NRC rating is between 0.80-0.95 depending on panel thickness. Environmental assets for Edit: Low VOC, Oeko-Tex Certified, Rapidly Renewable Content, mindful MATERIALS, Healthier Hospitals, HPD, and Declare CDHP Emissions Compliant.

Ecoustic® Lens – Enhance the acoustic properties in your space.

Unika Vaev extends their Sculpt™ Classic Shallow drop-in ceiling tile system ceiling with the acoustic baffle Ecoustic® Lens. The Ecoustic® Lens baffle complements the Sculpt™ Classic to enhance the acoustic performance. The Lens Collection is available in three designs – Channel design in four sizes, and Trio and Quartet in two sizes. Lens is available in 15 colors.

The Lens designs can be featured within a ceiling area for added depth and texture as well as assist in zoning spaces visually and acoustically. The Lens profiles are available with either square or radius corners to suit any interior space. Lens together with the Sculpt™ Classic tiles achieves a NRC of 0.9 - 1.0. Environmental assets for Lens: Low VOC, Oeko-Tex Certified, Rapidly Renewable Content, mindful MATERIALS, Healthier Hospitals, HPD, and Declare CDHP Emissions Compliant.

Unika Vaev was founded in 1975 and currently provides a wide range of solutions for Contract Textile applications. Unika Vaev’s extensive Acoustic Product Collection provides multiple functional and aesthetically pleasing sound absorption and diffusion solutions for ceiling, wall, floor, stationary and movable screens.

Work & Co’s New Office by Aspekt Office Feels Right at Home

Work & Co has offices in Brooklyn, Portland, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Belgrade and each of them were designed with elements that considered their specific location. For the company’s new office in Copenhagen, it tapped on multidisciplinary design studio Aspekt Office to create a workplace that’s homey, comfortable and quintessentially Danish.

Work & Co has offices in Brooklyn, Portland, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Belgrade and each of them were designed with elements that considered their specific location. For the company’s new office in Copenhagen, it tapped on multidisciplinary design studio Aspekt Office to create a workplace that’s homey, comfortable and quintessentially Danish.

Casey Baxter joins HBF

Casey Baxter has been named Vice President, General Manager for HBF + HBF Textiles. Based in New York City, Casey brings more than 16 years of sales and leadership experience in the commercial furniture industry with a focus on design-oriented brands. A consummate connector, she is recognized for her ability to create long lasting, meaningful relationships with designers, dealers and clients alike. She thrives on the strategic and collaborative aspects of the industry and is highly active within CoreNet Global, BeOriginal Americas, and the IIDA NY Chapter where she served on the Board of Directors as Co-Chair and Co-Founder of the Futurist Forum.

On her new role, Casey comments, “HBF combines a history of design excellence and craftsmanship with a long held commitment to celebrating and promoting female talent. I'm honored to have the opportunity to add to this legacy of quality and representation. I look forward to collaborating with the HBF team to continue to evolve the brand and introduce HBF to the next generation of specifiers."

Ski gondolas are the next big winter dining craze

Clutching a hot toddy, decked out in snow gear, and insisting that you’re not that cold: Wintry outdoor dining isn’t terribly different from skiing—especially if your favorite part of a ski trip is hunkering down in the lodge.

Now, restaurants across the United States are bringing the ski experience to decidedly flat city streets with winter 2021’s newest evolution of outdoor dining structures. First, there was the pod, yurt, and igloo. Now, there’s the the ski gondola.

When Dominique Bastien, owner of the Gondola Shop in Fruita, Colorado, bought close to 200 old ski gondolas from ski resorts a few years ago, she had planned to convert them for use in private outdoor spaces, like backyards, as a side gig between projects. (Her other company, Sunshine Polishing Technology, mainly repaints and maintains working gondolas at ski resorts.) Then COVID-19 hit, and she lost her polishing contracts. Suddenly, Bastien started getting calls from restaurants that wanted to install the gondolas for outdoor dining. And, as she put it, “it just got crazy.”

Ski gondolas typically transport skiers up hill via a connected cable. They look like rounded, enclosed pods, with plexiglass that allows passengers to see the view. In this way, they’re ready-made for outdoor dining: they have just enough room for a cozy seating set up, it’s an enclosed space that protects you from the elements, and has built-in windows for people watching or catching some winter sunlight.

Bastien estimates she has been contacted by about 50 restaurants across the United States, including from San Francisco, Cleveland, Colorado, and New York, where she says a restaurant owner just bought nine gondolas. The town of Mountain Village commissioned her biggest project, she says. It bought 25 gondolas and placed them around the town in support of restaurants.

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