PRESENTED BY

 TUESDAY APRIL 13, 2021

The Upfront

MARKETING: Herman Miller looks to new products and markets

There's a saying about products that "When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins. When a lousy team meets a great market, the market wins. But, when a great team meets a great market, something special happens." The question is, post-COVID, are we going to see a great market or, as some worry, a lousy market? And, if we do see a great market, will any of the office furniture makers be in a position to capitalize on it?

Great or lousy markets aside, the folks at Herman Miller are placing an unprecedented number of bets on building a great marketing engine and products - just in case. 

Last week, Herman Miller became the first company in our industry to employ a market influencer, aka a Brand Ambassador. Tim Betar (known as "Timthetatman" professionally), a prominent gamer who will serve as a "critical Touchpoint between the company and the gaming community."

I suppose you're wondering what Brand Ambassadors actually do. In this case, they say things like, "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!" 

Enough said. Your check is in the mail.

The only question for Herman Miller is whether or not gamer influencers (okay Ambassadors) influence anything other than game and computer purchases. In a great market, which the gaming industry enjoys, we'll see soon enough. Needless to say, Miller's timing for the whole gaming thing is pretty good. Luck? Certainly some of that too.

Next up for Herman Miller is the market launch of OE1, a new system, nonsystem, designed for the agile workplace. It's a post-COVID product, which luckily was in development for four years. In rolling out this product (no pun intended though almost everything comes on wheels), the company planted advanced editorial and background information (i.e the story) with publications such as The Robb Report, FastCompany, and Wallpaper (magazine). 

FastCompany headlines the new system - Herman Miller's new office line is the anti-cubicle, the perfect way to respond to the worldwide hatred for cubicles (apparently). The Robb Report, a publication concerned with the color choices for our Bently and whether or not the $100k watch we're wearing really is the right thing to wear to the carwash, steps out of their usual aspirational coverage of stuff rich people buy, with Herman Miller Reimagines the Office With a Collection of Endlessly Customizable Furniture. And finally, Wallpaper goes with Office furniture by Herman Miller and Industrial Facility redefines the workspace experience.

This is a significant change for the old Herman Miller that would previously plant advance stories in Businessweek and Fortune. Finding a new audience that is more (industry) woke is job one. 

Whether or not influencers (oh sorry, Ambassadors) will work and whether alternative media will get the message of the "anti-cubicle" out to the world remains to be seen. But as Steve Jobs taught us, you need to think different (or at least differently). 

And yes, other makers are doing engaging marketing as well. Humanscale two weeks ago tried live selling (aka HSN), and Knoll seems to like their tie-up with Gear Patrol, a site for people who only care about buying stuff that someone else recommends. Meanwhile, we all sit and hope for a great market.

How Long Will the (residential) Furniture Boom Continue?

Want a new sofa? Get in line. Room & Board, Blu Dot stretch to keep up with pandemic demand and unprecedented supply chain disruption.

Customer service 101: When business isn’t going as planned, be honest about it.

Room & Board, like many retailers, is struggling to keep up with pandemic demand, which hasn’t subsided, despite 2020’s rush to redecorate during lockdown. Many popular items are out of stock. Furniture that typically ships within a week is currently taking as long as four months. Blame a confluence of factors: Sales are up 35 percent so far this year. Meanwhile, Room & Board relies on many small U.S. manufacturing partners that can’t quickly pick up the production pace. And while still playing catch up from last spring’s shutdown, when stores were closed and no deliveries could be made, new challenges keep arising—like the Texas ice storms, which caused pipes to freeze and burst at a foam factory that supplies material for Room & Board upholstered goods. This week, the Minneapolis-based retailer took to social media to explain.

“…Right now, the furniture industry supply chains are strained. Material availability, staffing shortages and unprecedented demand is impacting everyone’s ability to fulfill orders quickly, including ours…We’re investing in our capacity to serve you by bringing on new U.S. manufacturing partners, adding delivery staff members and increasing warehouse space…Many of our popular items are out of stock for an extended time. If you’ve already ordered and your items are delayed, we apologize for the wait. From all of us at Room & Board, we appreciate your understanding and patience.”

Room & Board president/CEO Bruce Champeau

“My feeling is, let’s be open,” Room & Board president and CEO Bruce Champeau said. “We’ve got a 40-year track record and set a pretty high bar for ourselves. The customer is going to understand.”

Indeed, that candor seemed to resonate with Room & Board fans, who “liked” the retailer’s Instagram post more than 1,400 times with nary a negative comment and dozens of notes of encouragement like “I appreciate the communication” and “worth the wait.”

As one customer commented, “Everyone needs to take a breath…if late furniture is your biggest problem, you should count your blessings.”

Furniture boom

Certainly no one needs to worry about Room & Board.

Despite closing stores nationwide from April to June 2020 and halting deliveries for more than a month at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, Room & Board ended the year up 10 percent, Champeau said. And even after last year’s stock up on home office décor and patio furniture, demand continues to increase. Champeau said the private company is on pace to hit a record $675 million in sales this year. “Every time we find ourselves thinking it’s going to plateau, it’s a moving target.”

It’s the same story for Blu Dot, another Minneapolis-based furniture retailer with stores nationwide and a distribution center next door to Room & Board’s, in Otsego, Minn. Outdoor furniture orders jumped 100 percent last year; office increased by 90 percent, said Blu Dot co-founder and chief operating officer Maurice Blanks. “We keep asking ourselves how long it can continue,” Blanks said. “We just don’t know.”

Blu Dot outlet in Minneapolis

Blu Dot is best known for its modern home furnishings, but contract sales for commercial spaces—office, hotel, restaurant—account for a significant portion of the company’s business. That side “hit the skids” last year, but Blanks said the increase in residential sales “more than made up for it.” Commercial orders are already picking up for 2021, with office projects leading the way.

“When we do come back to the office, we’re coming to collaborate—that’s what you can’t do on Zoom,” Blanks said. “And rather than being in a cubicle for eight hours, businesses are going to want areas that look a lot like a living room.”

A second wave of home furniture purchases is being triggered by more companies announcing plans to remain hybrid. The desk chair that might have been good enough this past year suddenly demands an upgrade at the thought of work from home as a permanent state. Some companies are offering home office allowances to help employees get properly set up to work from home for the long haul.

“I do think there’s been a sustained change in terms of how we work,” Champeau said. “People are looking for opportunities to still work from home, so they’re investing more. Home is a place of comfort, rejuvenation.”

The Office is Becoming More Agile

If companies want happy workers, they need to give them choices.

That’s the theme from a Cushman & Wakefield and CoreNet Global survey of 339 people from over a dozen countries.

While flexibility is important, respondents indicated that 100 percent remote work is not ideal for most employees. Pre-pandemic, 59% of respondents described their company’s approach to work as office first. Post-pandemic, that number dropped to 10% as 58% of respondents indicated that they wanted to go to an office-first hybrid. After the pandemic, only 18% of respondents said that “mostly working in company offices” described their approach.

“We see a real opportunity for smart employers to transform the workplace experience with flexible options for employees by offering a variety of locations and experiences to support convenience, functionality and well-being,” said Despina Katsikakis, global leader of Cushman & Wakefield’s Total Workplace Global Lead in a prepared statement.

Still, one-third of respondents, including 39% of C-suite respondents, say that companies will allow employees to live anywhere regardless of company office presence.

Millennials are leading the drive to remote work. Fifty percent of that cohort said remote work was better for work-life balance. Nearly 40% of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers said the same thing.

Forty-eight percent of respondents in the Americas said that they were considering changes to their remote work policy. Another 22% said they have already announced changes in remote work policies.

Still, the office plays an important role. Eight-one percent of respondents said it was best for casual, impromptu conversations. Another significant group, 75%, said it helped establish a connection to company culture.

The pandemic has changed attitudes around assigned seating to collaboration spaces and working in “third spaces” (neither home nor the office).

Only 28% percent said “mostly assigned seating” described their approach. Forty-five percent said “mostly open seating” described their workplace.

“When we asked about the physical work environment, we saw significant movement in people’s views and approaches post-pandemic. There is a shift away from “owned” spaces and a move towards flexible space. People want flexibility—including virtual options and collaboration spaces,” said Sandy Romero, senior analyst at Cushman & Wakefield, in a prepared statement.

Return to the Office: Why Indoor Air Quality Should Be the Top Priority

As more companies welcome workers back to the office, indoor air quality is coming under intense focus.

• As more companies welcome workers back to the office, indoor air quality is coming under intense focus.

• Given the nature of the coronavirus, many individuals are concerned about the air quality of their workspace.

• HVAC systems, occupancy, and building layout and design all play important roles in limiting the spread of the virus indoors.

With the vaccine rollout well underway in many countries, companies are gearing up to welcome workers back into the office.

Surveys of employee sentiment have consistently found that employees want their organizations to prioritize their health and wellness in order for them to feel comfortable going back to the office. Given the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many individuals are particularly concerned about the air quality of public spaces.

The concerns are not unfounded; the EPA has found that indoor air can be 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air.

The negative effects of poor indoor air quality have been widely documented. The EPA lists the following health effects that poor indoor air quality can have on humans:

• Irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.

• Headaches, dizziness, and fatigue.

• Respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer.

The EPA further notes that “episodes of Legionnaires’ disease, a form of pneumonia caused by exposure to the Legionella bacterium, have been associated with buildings with poorly maintained air conditioning or heating systems.”

Poor indoor air quality can also trigger asthma attacks and lead to sick building syndrome.

What a year of Covid has done to work

A year into the pandemic, work is different—it’s better, but also harder. What does that mean for the future?

BY THE DIGITS 

6.9%: Jobs posting on Indeed in Feb. 2021 that are for remote positions, vs 2.9% in Jan. 2020

79%: Global survey respondents who said “the ability to live anywhere” would be important to them 

2.5: Additional hours per week people are working on average during the pandemic 

61%: Corporate leaders (more likely to be men who worked from home in executive jobs) say they’re “thriving” right now, according to a 2021 Microsoft survey

44%: Remote workers who say their mental health has declined in the past year

The Innovators: Walkabout Workplace

Walkabout Workplace CEO and co-founder Toni Portmann is the ultimate people person, the kind of CEO who believes when she walks into a meeting room, a break room or an office filled with family pictures, one's demeanor changes, creating room for spontaneous connectivity and creativity.

It's because of her belief in connection that Portmann took on the job as CEO of Walkabout Workplace, a five-year-old company with an app of the same name, in 2019.

The serial entrepreneur had served as CEO of several companies over the years, including a property and asset manager and an e-learning platform devoted to helping people improve their memory and information retention.

In just two years at the helm, Portmann has pulled the brand into the mainstream, allowing businesses exploring work-from-home and remote meeting options an opportunity to establish virtual offices online that replicate brick-and-mortar workspaces or dream destinations conceptualized by each individual end user. 

Portmann gave Bisnow a tour of the virtual office Walkabout Workplace set up for itself online and shared how her team competed with the Zooms and the Microsofts of the world to stake out a place for itself in the work-from-home tech space that exploded by necessity. 

Destination Conferences Are at the Intersection of Remote Work and In-Person Experiences

Real estate is as much about people as it is about buildings. The relationships forged over deals, negotiations, and cocktails are built in-tandem with progress towards a common goal. Real estate deals are more than transactions, they’re a symptom of establishing dependable and beneficial relationships that will make future actions easier and between trusted friends.

Networking is a crucial part to real estate, an industry that thrives on who you know and how you’re connected, almost to a fault. When in-person networking was all but halted due to pandemic restrictions, the real estate industry had to quickly adapt to survive while the world hit pause. Just like every other industry from education and healthcare to technology and construction, people took traditionally face to face interactions into the virtual realm.

The numbers say this isn’t a great idea. Eighty-five percent of people say they build stronger, more meaningful business relationships at conferences or meetings and 95 percent say these in-person meetings are crucial to creating and maintaining long-term business relationships. Certain aspects of communication are lost in a virtual environment like context clues and physical expressions or movements. Sarcasm is harder to comprehend online and sensing a conversation’s overall vibe may be impossible. Fan of multi-tasking? You can’t do that in-person as these interactions, fortunately, demand our full attention. When we cannot meet in-person, virtual is better than nothing, but it’s not an equivalent alternative.

Despite our appreciation for alone or quiet time, especially parents who have been juggling work and childcare for many months now, humans are social creatures. In fact, 65 percent of study participants reported increased feelings of loneliness since the pandemic began with a majority also experiencing anxiety, a loss of feeling connected, and depression.

As people stayed home and travel slid to a stop, events and conferences were one of the hardest hit industries. “COVID-19 made us all understand what we can do virtually and what is best done in person,” said David Hirschman, EVP and Chief Content Officer at Blueprint, an October real estate event in Las Vegas. “Conferences are one of the things that we learned can be done online but don’t have the same effect. We see hybrid events being part of our strategy going forward but as long as we can hold events in person, we will. Online the content can be shared even further but the networking element just doesn’t translate to the on-screen experience—and let’s face it, many people come to these events just to network.”

“COVID-19 made us all understand what we can do virtually and what is best done in person. Conferences are one of the things that we learned can be done online but don’t have the same effect.”

Studies have shown meeting in-person directly correlates to the probability of working together in the future. After the Leweb technology conference, Twitter followers were examined and it was revealed that speakers showed a 26 percent increase in the rate of new followers in the three months after the event while overall attendees saw a 15 percent increase.

Salesforce pushes remote-work option to end of year, but will open S.F. tower offices soon

Office software giant Salesforce will let employees work remotely till at least year’s end, it said Monday. The San Francisco firm said earlier that its workers would have the option of working from home through at least the end of July.

However, Salesforce said it would start bringing workers back to its headquarters offices in the city’s tallest building next month. A “phased reopening” process worldwide will see employees coming back to desks as local COVID-safety conditions allow, the company said.

“Offices will gradually reopen from 20% to 75% capacity, depending on the COVID data rating and local guidance,” Salesforce said in a news release. “In this stage, we will welcome both vaccinated and non-vaccinated employees, and we will continue to follow safety protocols and provide testing where possible.”

Most of the 17 offices Salesforce has opened under the first stage are in the Asia-Pacific region, the company said.

Returning employees will find re-designed lobbies, elevators and conference rooms, rearranged furniture, touch-free handles and sensors, plexiglass between desks, and air purifiers in conference rooms, along with “more collaborative spaces,” Salesforce said.

On Monday, Salesforce said it had been successful at serving customers and operating its business under a remote-work model. “We’re not going back to the way it was,” the company said. Earlier, Salesforce had announced its “Success from Anywhere” plan, saying 65% of its workers will be on a “flex” schedule and come into offices one to three days a week for meetings with colleagues or customers and for presentations. Employees who don’t live near offices or need to be in an office will be able to stay remote full time, while a small number will go to the office four to five days per week if their jobs require it, the company said.

While the firm’s statement Monday referred to offices opening at 100% capacity, it was not immediately clear whether the company plans to use less office space in the future because so many employees will spend significant time working remotely.

Salesforce also referred Monday to planned “Volunteer Vaccinated Cohorts” in some U.S. offices, starting with those in the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and offices in Palo Alto and Irvine. “To start, fully vaccinated employees will be able to volunteer to join groups of 100 or fewer people to work on designated floors in certain offices, following safety protocols and health mandates,” Salesforce said.

It was not immediately clear how the office-work situation of those vaccinated volunteers might differ from that of non-vaccinated employees. This article will be updated if Salesforce answers questions about that volunteer program and its plans for office space in the future.

Milan's fuorisalone organizers vow to hold events in September

Sixteen of Milan's design platforms have joined forces to commit to holding events in September even if the Salone del Mobile is forced to cancel.

The citywide events and venues, collectively known as the fuorisalone, issued a statement confirming that they will hold design shows from 5 to 10 September.

"The Milan fuorisalone, represented by a broad group of its most notable participant organisations, is pleased to confirm that its activities in and around the city of Milan will go ahead from the 5th to the 10th of September as planned," said the statement.

It added that events will take place "in full compliance with all precautionary measures necessary to safeguard the health of participants and the public".

Fuorisalone will happen in September

Signatories of the statement include design exhibition platforms Alcova, Tortona Design Week, Isola Design District and Brera Design District.

The move follows a plea from the Salone del Mobile to the Italian government last month seeking assurances that will allow the fair to go ahead despite the resurgence of Covid-19 cases in Italy.

The fair, the world's biggest and most important furniture fair, said it was "waiting for certainties from the government" before it could confirm its plans for September.

The Italian government had been expected to issue a ministerial decree last week, which the fair hoped would provide certainty.

Chat Board and Million Cph unveil multi-functional table Mies Collab

A first-time collaboration between Danish design brands, Chat Board and Million Cph, Mies Collab explores the growing trend for multi-purpose furniture designed for the workplace and the home

Allowing users to adapt their furniture to their way of life, Mies Collab’s design takes its cue from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s immortal dictum ‘less is more’ with a deliberately stringent and minimalist form.

Seamlessly intersecting horizontal and vertical lines create a clear, architectural composition which is equal parts form and function. With a meticulously precise attention to detail, the table features a contrasting juxtaposition of materials, including glass and powder-coated steel.

“Million Cph is a contemporary Danish design brand with the same core values of high-quality and sustainable design that drive our business”, comments Jan Frederik Rees, Head of Sales and Marketing at Chat Board. “This partnership allows us to offer customers a more extensive product offering to suit a greater variety of needs, as well as open us up to new sectors and audiences in line with our global sales strategy.”

Suitable as a work, dining and high table, Mies Collab emphasises the versatility and adaptability of its design. Available in 64 different colour combinations, users can also combine the Mies Collab table with the Chat Board Squad Poet movable screen. Designed in partnership with Swedish interior design firm RumRum, the screen transforms any table into a professional home office for two, with a writable glass board and sound dampening pinboard included.

Tom Dixon's gorgeous chair was made by one of Tesla's manufacturers

When the acclaimed British designer Tom Dixon was five, he was left alone, parked in a tiny French car, a Citroën 2CV. Since this was the 1960s, there were no child safety seats or laws against the practice. No doubt, Dixon was bored and curious, so he pulled on a lever, which happened to be the hand brake.

Parked on a hill, the car began to roll, and it didn’t stop until it crashed into something.

Dixon tells me this story now, quickly shrugging it off as a story within a story—”It was different times,” he says—before reaching his point. The Citroën 2CV has stuck with him since. It was a clever, low-budget car, which used a light tubed frame as its base (more like planes of the era than cars), covered in a thin veneer of stamped steel panels. Its hood in particular is ridged with curves that distinguish it from the VW Bug.

Today, Dixon is debuting his latest chair, dubbed the Hydro. It, too, is an efficiently built product, leveraging metal-forming technology from the auto industry, that undulates with its own unique flare—a spiritual nod to the hood of the 2CV, sure. But even though the chair itself was inspired by a childhood trauma, Dixon readily admits that it looks like a cross between a plastic garden chair and a Jeff Koons balloon dog.

The Hydro looks like a unique chair because it is produced in a unique way. It’s 100% aluminum, and its name is a nod to Norway’s Hydro, the world’s largest aluminum producer, which partnered with Dixon on the product. Instead of being molded (shot as hot liquid into a shell and left to cool) or stamped (pressed into shape from a single piece of metal), the chair is produced by an auto process known as superforming. Molten aluminum is sprayed onto a one-piece mold instead of being squeezed in a sandwich. Then it peels off as a very precisely made object.

Allez by Normann Copenhagen

The design of the Allez chair alludes to the French city life and bistro culture that emerged in the late 1800s and has since become a popular way of life all over the world. In the wake of the Wiener chair, the very symbol of café culture, time has made space for a new generation of café-inspired chairs like the Allez. Allez gives a contemporary look and feel to the traditional café chair's soft idiom and constructive strength in terms of design, functionality and sustainability. The result is a flexible design that still nods to a bygone era but has now been adapted to suit even more environments and user scenarios.

It has taken several years of development for designer Simon Legald and Normann Copenhagen to create a chair that meets the expectations of a modern and flexible design and works both indoors and outdoors. The search for manufacturers with market-leading expertise led to Italy, where specialists were willing to commit to the ever-increasing requirements that Normann Copenhagen sets for a future bestseller.

The Allez series also includes a table consisting of a cast-iron base and a selection of various tabletops. Inspired by the classic café table, the choice of materials includes marble, which in addition to the 4 mm thin tabletop option in stainless steel is particularly suitable for outdoor use. The tabletop is also available in a choice of black or natural oak veneer and all tabletops are offered in circular or square.

The Allez table is characterized by sleek, elegant lines from all vantage points and a cylindrical cast iron 3 or 4-legged pedestal base discretely shaped to mimic the curvature of the Allez chair legs.

With its modern design and incredible ability to assume a wide range of expressions, Allez will form part of any intimate space for new, meaningful moments.

Kettal presents Pavilion O to solve post-pandemic office needs

Spanish furniture company Kettal has just released its Pavilion O collection, an agile and modular structure that’s designed to meet the ever-changing dynamics of the workplace.

As organisations the world over are reimagining office and work life after Covid-19, many companies have opted for agile organisational structures which allow businesses to future-proof their offices, thanks to greater flexibility and adaptability.

To meet such demands, modular wall systems like Pavilion O allow companies to shift their workspaces when needed as office structures can be easily reconfigured to suit changing requirements.

As such, Pavilion O provides a flexible way of dividing offices into different zones for different working styles. Enabling future offices to provide a greater variety of spaces, these flexible hubs allow people to focus, collaborate, inspire and meet throughout the office.

Consisting of an aluminium structure that can be built out with a variety of materials, such as glass, wood and fabric, the modular system also comes with practical fittings, including shelving, TV units, whiteboards and bulletin boards.

By facilitating the creation of countless office and workspace layouts to suit a variety of tastes and styles, Pavilion O can be rapidly adapted and will accommodate changes to headcount or department functions within hours.

Furthermore, Kettal’s unique clipping system, Click & Work, encourages users to transform their spaces creating their own ‘mood ecosystems’. Wall-to-wall or corner-to-corner, the scope for creating adaptable office spaces is limitless as configurations can be altered to provide new spaces.

With businesses (and the world) changing fast, agile office furniture and designs have never been more important. While Pavilion O allows spaces to be reconfigured in hours, it also provides a more long-term sustainable solution to office design.

Versatile office furniture by Kaschkasch for Renz

"We wanted to develop products that are versatile and can be employed in classic and dynamic office worlds alike," explains Sebastian Schneider from the Cologne design duo Kaschkasch. Elegant in design, enduring in terms of materials, and flexible in use – a host of requirements that Sebastian Schneider and Florian Kallus met in a highly diverse collection for Renz: "Slide". Offering tables that are infinitely adjustable or can be moved around on castors, matching shelving, drawer units and a media element "Slide" is both attractive and provides the basic furniture for equipping a contemporary workspace.

Be it round or rectangular, the tables are not assigned a specific task but can be employed flexibly both as regards use and height. "We didn’t want the tables to look too technical but rather light and dynamic even though the construction is complex," Sebastian Schneider comments. Goal achieved. And they even found an elegant solution for the vertical cable duct thanks to the u-shaped profile of the table legs. Additional details are the flexible cable ducting, mounting boxes and the cable network on the underside of the table. Uneven floor surfaces can be easily offset, as the feet boast adjustable glides. And depending on personal preference it is possible to choose between vertical or angled table legs.

"Slide" by Kaschkasch for Renz stands for versatility but also for the craftsmanship quality of the traditional firm: "In the manufacturer’s workshop the table tops and edges are finished by hand which lends them a special touch," says Sebastian Schneider. For "Slide" Kaschkasch also incorporated solid wood into the range for Renz and for the table tops chose triangular profiles from straight via beveled through to a solid wooden profile edge. As for color scheme customers can chose between white, stone gray, black and pine green – neutral shades intended to foster wellbeing during work.

It is no coincidence that "Slide" offers an ideal basis for pleasant and productive work: Family-run company Renz places its overall focus on just one product development at a time in order to create a product that is perfect in every detail. "We had the exclusive means of being able to get involved at every stage of development and to accompany the project from beginning to end – from the first sketch via prototypes through to the film. That made for an excellent two-way feedback and also resulted in an excellent product," summarizes Florian Kallus.

Northern Trust Offices – Chicago

The planning of Northern Trust's expansive Chicago offices was assessed and trialed thoroughly prior to realization to ensure a fully functional space for the wealth management services company.

HED led a thoughtful and comprehensive approach to the design for Northern Trust‘s offices located at 333 South Wabash in Chicago, Illinois.

Spread across 17 floors, totaling just under a half a million square feet, the company decided to first build out a prototype of the new design ideas within the space to test them in action. HED’s research-driven process began with an assessment of workplace strategy and current portfolio usage, intensive weekly pre- and post-occupancy surveys, walkthroughs, open houses, verbal feedback and huddle sessions. This feedback rich prototype testing process ultimately allowed the project team to demonstrate available solutions to compare cost, look and feel, functionality, and to work out constructability kinks.

How the ergonomic office chair landed in your living room

Recall, if you can, circa 2019, when American offices were bustling with real, live people, each one seated in a slender black-mesh, ergonomic “task” chair.

Now, cast your eyes into your home office: an ergonomic office chair. Switch on “Billions,” “The Morning Show” or “The Intern” and there it is again.

Come to think of it, it was somehow always there on shows like “24,” “Ally McBeal,” “Sex and the City” and “Gossip Girl.”

Oh wow, is there even one at your dining room table? How did that chair get everywhere?

Herman Miller designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick created the best-selling Aeron chair, released in 1994.Herman Miller

Blame Humanscale, a leading industry manufacturer of ergonomic chairs, and their Freedom chair, designed by Niels Diffrient.

Once restricted to mass office sales only, the brand saw its business triple during the pandemic as it opened up sales to home offices for the first time.

But long before COVID-19, their sculpted, recycled-plastic chair (which retails for $1,049) had already become a defining symbol of white-collar professionalism thanks to Harold Randall, owner of Product Co-Stars, a supplier of product placement for set designs.

He spotted the Freedom chair just before it launched in 1999 at a trade show in LA, recognizing that it was the perfect chair for highly driven, ruthlessly successful characters.

“From the very beginning, the Freedom chair was a winner with set decorators and production designers,” Randall said. “It’s been good to me!”

Life quickly imitated art. The chair is now found in almost every Fortune 100 Company and is used by everyone from Barack Obama to Prince William and Mark Cuban.

But the history of the ergonomic chair goes back to the 1970s, with the introduction of the Ergon chair, a product of visionary designer, Bill Stumpf for Herman Miller. Stumpf and Don Chadwick went on to design the best-selling Aeron chair, released in 1994.

Stumpf’s first chair was developed after years of studying X-rays of the way people sit and it debuted just as computer technology was changing the way Americans worked.

In fact, according to the American Heart Association, sedentary jobs have risen by 83 percent since 1950.

Constantin Boym, chair of Pratt’s Industrial Design department, explains that the ergonomic chair represented a shift in seating. For the first time the chair became “a machine for sitting — another piece of equipment, on par with a computer, a printer, task light and other work-related paraphernalia” — rather than just a piece of decorative and functional furniture.

But not everyone is in love with this hot seat.

There are nearly billions of Humanscale task chairs on “Billions.” They might even have IMDB credits.

“Too often, task chairs look like devices meant to fold us up,” said designer Celerie Kemble, who has softened the aesthetics of task chairs by re-upholstering them in decorative fabrics. “I don’t like being caught in the reproachful glare of an empty work chair in my home. I’d much rather work from a chair that calls itself a ‘reading chair.’ ”

Nevertheless, the most ubiquitous of chairs is only becoming more established as a fixture, not just of the office, but of the home.

“I think chairs have become an easy way to communicate a status or lifestyle, and more specifically a level of comfort,” said Leena Jain, Humanscale’s Chief Marketing Officer. “We have overwhelmingly heard from our customers that ergonomic chairs are an important part of creating a productive, healthy workspace. If we aren’t supported correctly and comfortably, productivity absolutely takes a hit.”

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