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The Personal Workplace – New System of Office Furniture
1988 to 1990Herman Miller, the second largest manufacturer of office furniture in the United States, commissioned C.E.S. to develop the "personal workplace", a new system of furniture, which aimed at changing the nature of the American workplace completely.
The emphasis was on genuine working comfort, and allowing each person to design their own workspace for themselves. For this purpose a pattern language for the individual office was developed, in parallel with a layout process for an individual office and for a department. The idea of a computer program which would provide an easy tool for the office users to layout their office spaces for themselves was intensly pursued.
The proposed line of furniture included desks, tables, chairs, bookcases, shelves, worksurfaces, filing cabinets, conference tables, sofas, curtains, windows, curtains, lights with ornamental reflectors, pin boards, carpets, walls, ceilings, rolling tables, personal chairs, armchairs, and others, in a variety of sizes and colors.
Contents
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Rolling side table / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Rolling table
1985
Rolling side table made of black lucite surfaces with heavy brass castors, used for miscellaneous machines and equipment, and sundry small items. Furniture prototype incorporated in the Center for Environmental Structure office. A version of this, constructed in solid wood, ...
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Low bookcase / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Low bookcase
1985
The Low Bookcase, a simple elegant piece of furniture, was designed to be used as a divider within a room or to line a wall or finally as a built-in element within a thick wall. Available in five different lengths, ...
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright desk / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive desk
1985
Red automobile laquer sprayed over MDF to create high gloss surfaces for the desk frame and its upstand with shelves and pigeonholes, combined with a brown leather slightly sloping writing surface; available in prescribed colors in three sizes. Furniture prototype ...
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Forwarding a formal project proposal, for the "Development of a New Line of Office Furniture and Enclosures" and referring to an article recently published by Architectural Record's Interiors issue as an example illustrating what is being proposed for the Herman Miller Inc. project. A list of practical points is included
28/09/1987
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Forwarding a copy of a Herman Miller standard contract, with a suggestion to think about the project organization and its specific contract and commitment details; communication after an in-person meeting with Christopher Alexander. Attached 24-page document is: Herman Miller, Inc., Project Review Process dated January 1983
18/11/1987
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Test Result for 4136 Linoleum
28/11/1988
SEE ALL Correspondence
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Newhouse Group Furniture: A Fresh Approach to the Office
01/01/1988
Herman Miller’s brochure with examples of the Newhouse Group furniture and its blending with Action Office Encore panels and components.
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Herman Miller Office Tour: July 1988 Order Entry
01/07/1988
Information on client’s Company presented on video.
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Herman Miller Office Tour: July 1988; Herman Miller Corporate Business Systems, Systems Analyst & Programmers
01/07/1988
Information on client’s Company presented on video.
SEE ALL Visual & Audio Materials
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Herman Miller Furniture Systems: Contract
02/06/1988
18-page unsigned original Contract setting the key points of agreement between Herman Miller, Inc. and the Center for Environmental Structure in 29 paragraphs. Included also is a copy of the contract with editing which includes three pages with Exhibit C ...
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Herman Miller Furniture Systems: The Personal Workplace - A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Vol 1. Overview and Scope - General Introduction
01/01/1988
16-page document which provides an overview of the scope of the work, and the predominant issues to be addressed, as reflected in the Table of Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. The Character of Office Space; 3. Types of Individual Workspace; 4. ...
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Herman Miller Furniture Systems: The Personal Workplace - A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Vol 2. Catalog - The New Line of Furniture
01/01/1988
33-page document, which includes an Introduction, list of the twenty nine items of furniture available with descriptions for each one. The items of furniture are chosen with the intension to allow the user to find a way in which he/she ...
SEE ALL Reports
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Desks - Comments from Working People: The Office Anatomy Project
01/01/1987
Ten different professionals discuss about their working-desk use and working habits, prepared by the Herman Miller Research Corporation.
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Personal Workplace - HMI Team; eighteen short essays
15/07/1988
A set of eighteen essays, twenty eight pages in total, prepared at the commencement of the project and addressed to the C.E.S. team working on it, which set the tasks to work on, the qualities and characteristics to be achieved, ...
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Series of tasks to be accomplished for the construction of the two mock-up office rooms, called "Chris Room" and "Artemis Room"
01/01/1988
A series of index cards pasted on eight pages; each card is labelled with the name of a particular piece of furniture or a spatial element, and contains the decisions to be made and the tasks to accomplished by a ...
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Photographs of project model
01/01/1988
Furniture paper models to scale, used as the “Cardboard Model” kit to facilitate users in testing the layout of their personal office space; three views of the model kit, a top openable box with various furniture pieces in it.
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Photographs of building interior
01/01/1988
Six views of the first office interior for one person, built by the Center for Environmental Structure as a prototype office. It includes prototype pieces and mock-ups from the new office furniture system.
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Photographs of building interior
01/01/1988
Seven views of the second office interior for one person, built by the Center for Environmental Structure as a prototype office. It includes prototype pieces and mock-ups from the new office furniture system. The first photo was exhibited at the Locus ...
SEE ALL Photographs
References
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Design and Construction is one Integrated Making Process
The design process of a project and its construction process are united into one continuous and intertwined making process, unfolding in a step-by-step sequence. Design ends together with the completion of the construction process. "Making" is a conception of the ...
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The Sequence of Unfolding - Generative Codes for the Design Process
In architecture, as in other things, the "right" sequence is of vital importance. It is a generative sequence of progressive differentiations, which allow space to unfold in the right order. Each differentiation acts on the product of the previous ...
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The Uniqueness of People's Individual Worlds, Always Respected and Manifested
In the last two centuries "modular" design has produced identical apartments, arranged in typical apartment blocks. The same is true for mass-produced furniture. Uniqueness, which expresses personal needs and whiches, and which springs from the need to adapt and connect ...
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Impersonal Boring Work - A Significant Problem in the Business World: draft of unpublished article
01/07/1989
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Vision of a New Workplace - A sketch of a new workplace which is now in process of development by the Center of Environmental Structure and Herman Miller: Advanced version of the 1989-Jul draft titled "Impersonal Boring Work...", but still a draft
01/10/1989
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A Renegade Architect Designs for 'Every Man' - A Rebel who Makes Every Client an Architect
29/06/1989
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Transmittal of an 18-page copy of "A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Volume 1. Overview and Scope". Notes that another fax will follow immediately. the 19 pages are not attached here
03/04/1996
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Transmittal of a 20-page copy of "A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Volume 6. Revolution in the Character of General Office Space"
03/04/1996
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Work Armchair models
01/01/1988
Two paper models of the Work Armchair, presented in five photographs.
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Conference Table model
01/01/1988
Paper model of the Conference Table, presented in five photographs.
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Low Bookcase / Hermann Miller New Office Furniture System: Low Bookcase model
01/01/1985
Paper model of the Low Bookcase, presented in five photographs.
SEE ALL Models & Mock-ups
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Cost Estimate - Alexander Silk Tackboard
09/12/1988
Cost estimate on material, finishing and labor of the silk tack board with a one page table of a confidential development cost estimate .
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Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk Work Surface Heights - Adjustments & Manager's Desk
01/11/1988
Study on the extent and nature of office work surface height adjustments that occur when workers have the option and support to do so.
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Herman Miller Furniture Systems: System 2000
01/01/1988
8-page preliminary list of office furniture prototypes built by C.E.S. for the Herman Miller project; includes color photos, description, variations, dimensions, and pricing for the following: Manager’s Desk, Executive Desk, Low Bookcase with Drawers, High Bookcase with Flat Files, Japanese ...
SEE ALL Records
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright Desk / Hermann Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk - Photographs
01/01/1985
Two professional photographs of fully functioning prototype piece of office furniture.
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Haworth New Office Furniture System: Rolling Side Table / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Rolling Table - Photographs
01/01/1985
Professional photographs of fully functioning prototype piece of office furniture.
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Watercolor sketches for the projects related with "The Personal Workplace - New System of Office Furniture": Six full page watercolor sketches - Photographs
01/01/1985
Photographs of the four watercolor sketches from Christopher Alexander’s notebook, conveying the form and feeling of personal workplaces: 1) Office with red desk and red wall frieze with yellow spades; 2) High green ceiling room with yellow floor and black ...
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Arch 201, Spring 1989: Student paper titled "Toward a New Office Archetype"
01/01/1989
Paper loosely examines the process of determining a new archetype for an office building.
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Arch 201, Spring 1989: Student paper titled "Dissecting the Beast: An Examination of the Contemporary Office Building"
01/01/1989
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Arch 201, Spring 1989: Student paper titled "Investigations Concerning the Making of Personal Office Buildings"
01/03/1989
SEE ALL Course Material