Last weekend marked the start of the 30th International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). Taking place at the Javits Center in New York City, the four-day event brings together more than 36,000 industry professionals ranging from architects, distributors and manufacturers, to interior designers, retailers, visual merchandisers and more. Today, the final date of the fair, will welcome the general public to the experience.
More than 800 exhibitors from around the world are showcasing contemporary furniture, lighting, wall coverings, textiles, carpet and flooring, among other products, designed for commercial and residential spaces.
Numerous seminars — ICFF Talks — take place throughout the fair, and in addition to walking the floor and seeing a range of impressive items, we attended three of them.
“Beyond Sustainability” was led by Jon Strasser, director of workplace strategy at Humanscale. His session covered sustainable operations, healthy material selection, wildlife preservation and a commitment to having a net positive effect on the global community. As a design and manufacturing company of ergonomic products, including chairs, lighting and office tools, Humanscale's mission is to improve health and comfort at work in a sustainable way. Strasser said about “49 percent of consumers will say they are more likely to purchase product that has a social agenda,” and, increasingly, there are several means for organizations to achieve this. His organization is passionate about resource depletion.
“It has to do with your design philosophy,” he asserted. “If you are designing a product well, you're designing around function not beauty. It means you are not chasing beauty trends, so what you make looks as good 20 years from now as the day you took it out of the box — it's not going to go out of style. If you are designing around simplicity, you are using fewer resources because you are using fewer parts and pieces. Fewer parts and pieces means less things are going to break. If you design for longevity, you keep products out of a landfill.”
Strasser suggested using resources such as Anew, which assists companies concerned with product lifecycle. The organization provides businesses with solutions that “repurpose and steward their surplus equipment, fixtures and furniture to local organizations and public service agencies in need.”
Strasser also espoused organizational involvement in wildlife preservation through programs such as the Living Product Challenge, a framework for manufacturers to “create products that are healthy, inspirational and give back to the environment while functioning as elegantly as nature.” It consists of seven performance areas: place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity and beauty, and the imperative is to donate a half a cent of every dollar of gross profit to a wildlife preservation program. “And why shouldn't you?” Strasser asked the audience. “Why would you not be held accountable for that? Wildlife preservation is an important thing.” Humanscale has been working with the World Wildlife Fund for several years assisting in the replenishment of tigers at a game reserve.
Green certifications are also important. “In this industry there are almost 600 different ones — that's a lot,” Strasser said. “A lot of people bad mouth certifications, but if you are working with an organization that's pursuing a certification, it's a really good thing. It means that company has opened up their books, methodology and protocol to an agnostic, objective third party. They are letting someone else come in and say what you are doing is good or it's not enough. So, it's a good process, and it's been really helpful for us to track what we do.”
Another resource Strasser suggested was the Net Positive Project. He described it as a new way of doing business which puts back more into society, the environment and the global economy than it takes out. Companies participating, including Patagonia, “share an ambition to grow their brand, have strong financial performance and attract the brightest talent,” he said. “Businesses run the gamut of sectors from nonprofit to private to public.”
As we moved into the afternoon, the next ICFF Talk — “Art x Design” — featured a panel of art consultant and moderator/panelist Christina Minas, founder of Christina Minas Fine Art; architect Succhi Reddy, founding principal of Reddymade; and in-house curator Kate Gavreil, cultural affairs director at Two Trees Management Co. The discussion focused on the expanding role of contemporary and modern art in the overall design of commercial and residential projects and how companies can achieve a seamless integration of the two. With each panelist working in different aspects of art, ranging viewpoints brought plenty of discussion. For Gavreil, art has brought philanthropy into her work in the buildings her company manages and their community. For Reddy, decorative arts add value in service to design. “Space, art and design should challenge you,” she insisted. The tricky part, Gavreil said, is that sometimes the value you add is invisible. “When done well, it's hard to place a value on it,” she said. “When done poorly, it's easy to identify as something that takes value away.”
Art communicates feeling and thoughts, according to Reddy, when Minas questioned how it enhanced the perception of a client or the brand of a corporation. Understanding how art contributes to a company in Gavreil's case is the vision of responsible development. “We are stewards of communities, so we have to be responsible and make streets livable, add value and make the place we develop more desirable,” Gavreil said. Reddy agreed you can't show people the impact of art, so it's hard to determine ROI; but it's what makes a space not generic — and it elicits an emotional response. “Artists are great collaborators,” she explained. “There is a depth of thinking and knowledge of how to integrate art into space to make it a privileged experience.”
Meanwhile her audience, according to Gavreil, are “art curious” — they like art but they may not have a great familiarity as art consumers. She has been happily surprised, however, by the levels of engagement, which have encouraged her to be more specific.
Minas added she finds her clients wanting to engage with local artists. “Clients love to tell the story of where they are in their community and city,” she said, adding there is a sort of love affair clients have with certain pieces, and people have a more developed sense of taste and aesthetic — they just don't know how to explain it. While companies seek out Reddy as a source when they are looking for something, Gavreil suggested they also call local arts councils for recommendations. Both agreed the goal of design is to communicate, and art can play a pivotal role.