Design studio on Office Building Design

Spring 1989

Students were asked to examine contemporary office buildings, specify their problems and propose a design process, which would generate a new archetype for office buildings. Emphasis to be given to the criteria and patterns which make the office spaces personal and livable in all levels of scale. Students provided papers and drawings of office buildings in all scales, from overall volumetric configuration to detailed configuration of spaces.

University Program:

Master of Architecture

Course type:

Graduate Design Studio

Course number:

Arch. 201

Instructors:

Christopher Alexander, Eleni Coromvli

Enrolled students:

Susan Blowers, Tom Dinwoodie, Dil Green, Ora Hatheway, Ross Ishikawa, Cliff Niederer, Soren Pfeffer, Marlene Suggs, Bob Theis, Robert M. Walsh, Chris Winans

Contents

Drawings

Arch. 201 The Office Building: Office Layout Process - Student Drawings 01/03/1989

Sketches, Floor Plan

Designers:

Chris Winans, Marlene Suggs, Robert M. Walsh, Ora Hatheway, Soren Pfeffer, Bob Theis, Cliff Niederer, Ross Ishikawa, Susan Blowers, Dil Green, Tom Dinwoodie, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Original on Tracing Paper

Size:

8 1/2"x11"

Seven sets of sketches depicting an office layout as imagined by each student, following the steps of the “The Personal Workplace: A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort – Vol. 10, Office Building” describing the layout process.

Photographs

Office Building Design: Photographs of student drawings 01/03/1989

Design Studio Course, Drawing

Photographer:

Dill Green, U.S.A.

Source:

PMT

Characteristics:

8 1/2"x11", B&W

Photographs depicting four student drawings of an office building in Manchester, England. They include floor plans with an axonometric view, longitudinal section, elevations and perspective views.

Course Material

SEE ALL Course Material

References

Projects

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 ...