Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
To celebrate International Women's Day, the Dezeen editorial team has nominated 50 women and female-led studios from the architecture and design industry who inspire us. In no particular order... Via dezeen.com
The Charleston East, California campus is being designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studio, and is set to be Google’s first purpose-built office complex.
There’s a problem with recliners, one that starts with their rec room aesthetics and ends with the reclining mechanism itself. But as designers David Ritch and Mark Saffell of multidisciplinary 5d studio discovered when Herman Miller and Nemschoff asked them to design a brand-new healthcare recliner, making something that both the ailing and their caregivers could not only use but also enjoy was going to require truly putting the “multi” into “multidisciplinary.” Working with engineers and designers, they’ve produced Ava, a recliner that looks narrow but feels roomy, is inviting but also antibacterial, and that’s just as appealing to the people pushing the chair as the people sitting in it.
This April, Humanscale will bring an engaging and innovative RE:CHARGE Café concept to the Fuorisalone during Milan Design Week. The concept will offer much needed respite to design crowds who will spend the week avidly travelling the streets to see the vast range of design exhibitions, presentations, and events.
In a rare interview, German designer Dieter Rams has called for a return to well-made, long-lasting products, even if it comes at the expense of design innovation. In the interview, published in the latest issue of Kinfolk, Rams said that restrained aesthetics and optimised functionality are key to creating products that will endure, even if these qualities "act as a constraint upon innovation".
"I have always tended to steer well clear from this discussion about beauty and argued instead for a design that is as reduced, clear and user-oriented as possible, and simply more bearable for a longer period of time," he said.
As any smartphone user could attest, the things we own sometimes end up owning us. Equally, the things we create can end up owning us. The most famous item designed by Charles Eames is a moulded plywood, leather upholstered lounge chair and matching ottoman that are timelessly iconic, have spawned thousands of rip-off versions, invariably feature in any anthology of classic Twentieth Century design and are now part of a permanent exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Yet Eames himself never intended it to go into production in the first place and didn’t even view it as his best product. In an interview in Time magazine he reveals that it was originally designed as a gift for a friend. ‘I made it as a present for Billy Wilder,’ he said. ‘Billy had made a picture in East Germany and found a Marcel Breuer chair and brought it back to me and this was a return present.’
Many a gem of the mid-century modern period has passed through a certain 40,000 square foot warehouse in Chicago, its cultural and material value invariably ballooning in the process. At the helm of the operation is Richard Wright, the founder of the eponymous auction house that has defined its purview as twentieth century design, whatever form that may take. Since 2000, Wright has tested the limits of the traditional auction house, defying precedent in both its digital and physical reach.
The driving force behind the auction one-offs, mobile apps, and catalog overhauls, Richard Wright harbors an undeniable love of all things modern, the desire to share it with the world, and a willingness to take risks. In 2006, he organized the auction of Pierre Koenig’s iconic Case Study House #21, its record sale further cementing the fact that modernism, and its contemporary patronage, can involve a nebulous spectrum of objects, seats, and spaces. Knoll Inspiration caught up with the auctioneer to discuss the persistence of mid-century modern, the legacy of Knoll, and the online future of the auction industry.
Meet the people shaping the future of design. Students from design programs stretching coast-to-coast recently traveled to Michigan in the heart of winter to unveil their final design submissions for Steelcase’s annual NEXT Student Design Competition. The finalists emerged from more than 65 programs and 800 students competing this year.
The students rose to the challenge of creating the next generation design studio situated in Los Angeles’ entertainment district. All five finalists presented in front of a panel of top industry leaders. Judges awarded Amy Groome, a Virginia Tech talent, top prize for her design inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. All five women who made the journey to Steelcase said they came away winners — validated for taking risks, energized by their new peers and inspired by their differences.
The modular furniture of influential German designer Dieter Rams is the focus of an exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.
The Modular World exhibition is billed as the first to primarily focus on Rams' furniture – as opposed to the electrical goods he iconically designed in his 40 years as head of product design for Braun.
HNI Monday announced the retirement of Kevin Stark, Vice President of Design for HNI Contract Furniture Group, which includes Allsteel, Gunlocke, Paoli and HBF. For the last three years, Stark has acted as design consultant on all four brands. Prior to that, he had spent 30 years with HBF, serving as President of the brand from 2011 until 2014, when he assumed his present position. HBF was acquired by HNI Corporation in 2008.
The architecture and design industry still doesn't provide the same opportunities for both sexes said architect David Adjaye, on the day that hundreds of thousands of women worldwide marched for equal rights.
Asked whether his sector was at the forefront of gender equality, the recently knighted British architect replied: "I don't think we're leading it at all."
He was speaking to Dezeen during the Interior Design Show in Toronto, one of many cities internationally where huge demonstrations – spurred by the inauguration of US president Donald Trump the day before – took place on Saturday to highlight women's rights.
"I find it exhausting that women are still fighting for gender parity," said Adjaye. "I find it embarrassing to be really honest."
As some activists march and picket on the street on Inauguration Day, others will protest through design.
"The intention is that artists, community activists, designers, and community members are all in a room together thinking through what are the hopes and concerns that we believe we're going to be facing in the next few years," says Bryan Lee, one of the organizers of the first national Design as Protest day, which will hold workshops in cities across the country on the afternoon of January 20.
Experiential graphic design (EGD) enhances the connection between users and the built environment by highlighting shared values and culture. As workplace design pushes the boundaries of flexibility and expression, EGD applications are challenged to strike a balance between autonomy and resilience. Embarking on 2017, we predict immersive experience and collaborative content will drive our practice in the year ahead.
In 2017, the desire for immersive experiences will drive innovation, and this will affect the built environment. Branded spaces are becoming sensory rich journeys. Storytelling in built space requires much more than a simple logo or mission statement on the wall. To create unique and relevant environments, designers must take an integrated approach to communicating message and values, and use brand messaging tools—from materials to lighting to creative technology—that deliver impactful and emotional connections to space.
The start of a new year is typically a time of reflection and prediction. I’m often asked, “What’s the newest design trend?” For 2017, let’s skip the “trend” discussion and focus on what really drives design – people. Organizations that understand and embrace the impact of design as a tool for cultivating relationships between people and environments will lead our industry. After all, good design is holistic in its reach and influence.
The idea of a chair as a singular artifact and benchmark of innovation will no longer define thought leadership. Thoughtful, human-centered design is the goal. 2017 will be a year of growth – continued interest and investment in solutions-based marketing and product applications.
Created by product designer Yang Zhao, the sharkman is a hybrid wearable furniture which explores the possibilities of deformable ‘soft furniture’. Working with the idea of flexibility, the item could suit many different situations and usages.
California-based industrial designer Don Chadwick, of Chadwick Studio, has worked with some of the biggest furniture design manufacturers in the world. Designing products for the likes of Knoll and Humanscale, he is nevertheless probably best known for an 1994 ergonomic chair design with Bill Stumpf (1936-2006), which became one of the most iconic designs of the late 20th century: Aeron.
Produced by Herman Miller, Aeron has maintained unrivalled popularity for 23 years, much to the annoyance and frustrations no doubt of many furniture manufacturers that view the chair as a specifiers’ favourite. But despite Aeron’s immovable popularity Herman Miller took the bold and brave step to update the design and this year, amid much industry talk and anticipation, launches Aeron Remastered.
Research on sensorial design helps LinkedIn create offices that boost wellbeing and engagement.
“It’s all about turning on the senses at work, not turning them off,” says Il Prisma architect Elisabetta Pero. Il Prisma, a Steelcase distributor, undertook a unique research project which led to the design of LinkedIn offices in Milan, Munich, Paris and Madrid that engage the five senses — in order to boost employee wellbeing. Afterall, it’s through the five senses—sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch—that humans perceive the world.
Il Prisma undertook a scientific study to measure how the five senses within the workplace neurologically affect people. The research helped determine what fosters different states in the brain, specifically attention, focus, learning, evocative, simplicity and calm, which help people work better.
See photos from all four LinkedIn locations and read more about sensorial design in 360 Latest News >
As the newest restaurant he’s designed, for Hong Kong’s DFS, opens in Venice, the Frenchman talks mega yachts, Steve Jobs, why he stays away from fashion, and designing for Xiaomi despite not owning a mobile phone or computer.
In 10 Principles of Good Design, famed German industrial designer Dieter Rams famously called for "less but better" products. This year, architects and interior designers adopted a similar philosophy to create spaces that are elegant in spite of their economy.
In many ways, it's an economic imperative: Rising housing costs have forced designers and architects across the nation—and in many nations abroad—to squeeze more utility out of smaller footprints. Take Tree Hugger founder Graham Hill's 350-square-foot New York apartment, which shape-shifts to accommodate as many as 10 dinner guests. Global warming concerns have also compelled designers to minimize the environmental impact of their work, as we saw with the House of Rolf, a home built from the remains of a demolished office building.
Lella Vignelli, a designer who, with her husband, Massimo Vignelli, introduced a spare, elegant style to a wide range of products and corporate brands, attracting an international clientele, died on Dec. 22 at her home in Manhattan. She was 82.
The cause was dementia, her son, Luca, said.
Ms. Vignelli, an architect by training, brought a three-dimensional imagination to her husband’s graphic-design sensibility. Together, they were a two-person design army with a shared aesthetic — sleek and intelligent — that appealed to clients eager to express a new identity or to develop products with bold, modernist lines.
After working with Italian companies like Pirelli and Olivetti in the early 1960s, the Vignellis established an American base of operations through Unimark, their corporate branding company, and, later, Vignelli Associates, which they founded in 1971, and a sister company, Vignelli Designs, which began in 1978.
