Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright Desk / Hermann Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk – Photographs

01/01/1985

Finalized Piece of Office Furniture

Professional photograph of fully functioning prototype piece of office furniture.

Photographer:

Dennis Anderson, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Source:

Digital, Print, Negative, Slide

Characteristics:

8"x10", 4"x5", Color, B&W

Content of

Construction Innovation

Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright desk / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive desk 1985

Work of Art for Project, Office Furniture Prototype

Created by:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black

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 ...

References

Scientific Research

Color and Inner Light: The Eleven Color Properties

Areas of focus:

Structure of Space

Guiding idea:

Centers and Fields of Centers

Christopher Alexander postulated that centers and the field of centers they create are the building blocks from which wholeness is made. However, he further argued that geometry alone is not sufficient, and that color is the way wholeness comes to ...
Strong Centers in all Levels of Scale

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Structure Preserving Transformations

A building can only amount to something as a living thing when the various physical elements which appear in it are profound centers. The dominant feature of the process that is working correctly is that new centers are formed, and ...

Projects

New System of Office Furniture for Haworth, Inc. 1985 to 1986

Holland, MI, U.S.A.

Office Furniture, Designed , Furniture prototypes built by C.E.S.

Client:

Haworth Manufacturing, Inc. - Tom Hench

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black, Mark Brinner

Design and construction process:

Theree design principles guided the development of the project: 1) Layout of the personal work space by their users in order to meet their own personal needs; this process is achievable through the use of a computer program developed at C.E.S. which carries a worker through the design process. 2) Use of flexible manufacturing techniques, which allow individualisation of each piece of furniture, without increasing costs; the purpose of this feature is to eliminate the modularity that is part and parcel of current systems. 3) The basis of design is the real human needs and desires, not on the latest trend.

Project stages:

Pattern language for project by C.E.S. Generic rules for office layout process Use of full scale mock-ups Fabrication of full size furniture prototypes by C.E.S. Design Development drawings done after fabrication

The new system of office furniture, intended for mass production, was designed in such a way as to be capable of creating the environment for millions of workers, in an endless variety of specific configurations. The line of furniture provided ...
The Personal Workplace - New System of Office Furniture 1988 to 1990

Zeeland, MI, U.S.A.

Office Furniture, Designed , Two personal offices with furniture prototypes built by C.E.S.

Client:

Herman Miller, Inc. - Rob Harvey, Vice President

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black

Design and construction process:

Theree design principles guided the development of the project: 1) Layout of the personal work space by their users in order to meet their own personal needs; this process is achievable through the use of a computer program developed at C.E.S. which carries a worker through the design process. 2) Use of flexible manufacturing techniques, which allow individualisation of each piece of furniture, without increasing costs; the purpose of this feature is to eliminate the modularity that is part and parcel of current systems. 3) The basis of design is the real human needs and desires, not on the latest trend.

Project stages:

Generic rules for office layout process Use of full scale mock-ups Fabrication of full size furniture prototypes and office rooms by C.E.S. Design Development drawings done after fabrication

Herman 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 ...

Drawings

Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright Desk / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk - Preliminary Design Drawings 01/07/1985

Construction Innovation, Preliminary Design, Perspective, Section, Elevation, Details

Designers:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Original on Paper

Size:

8 1/2"x11"

Two pages of pen free-hand sketches and four pencil hardline sketches of the desk section and its basic details, representing the final vision of the desk with its special features, and the first attempts to dimension its parts and its ...
Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright Desk / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk - Preliminary Design Drawings 01/05/1985

Construction Innovation, Preliminary Design, Axonometric, Section, Elevation

Designers:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Photocopy

Size:

8 1/2"x11"

Scale:

1 1/2"=1'

Four pages with preliminary hardline drawings drawn to scale with dimensions, represent an early idea for the desk .
Haworth New Office Furniture System: Upright Desk / Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Executive Desk - Design Development Drawings 01/05/1986

Construction Innovation, Design Development, Axonometric, Plan, Section, Elevation

Designers:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Original on Vellum

Size:

8 1/2"x11"

Scale:

1 1/2"=1'

Eight sheets of ink hardline construction drawings; axonometric, elevations, vertical section, plan and horizontal sections, with dimensions.