Go BackWatercolor sketches for the projects related with “The Personal Workplace – New System of Office Furniture”: Six full page watercolor sketches from Christopher Alexander’s notebook, conveying the form and feeling of personal workplaces
1985The watercolor sketches by Christopher Alexander were inspired by the sought after qualities for the "Sweet Potatoes" project and then set a milestone for the feeiling of spaces to be achieved in the projects for a "New System of Office Furniture" for Haworth and Herman Miller.
The six main sketches are: 1) Grey desk with blue bench and yellow stool; 2) Long alcove with counter and green drawers below; 3) Office with red desk and red wall frieze with yellow spades; 4) High green ceiling room with yellow floor and black large tables & stools; 5) Entry arched gateway and columns on light purple walls; 6) Light blue walls with arched opening and red spotted wall frieze. In addition, there are two partly completed sketches depicting wall panels.
The notebook was one of the artifacts exhibited in "Designed in California - Rise of the User", in the San Fransisco MOMA, on March 2018, opened on the page with the red desk sketch.
Content of
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New System of Office Furniture for Haworth, Inc.
1985 to
1986
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 ...
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Offices and Workshops for Sweet Potatoes Children's Clothing Factory
1985 to
1986
2,300 square feet of interior office space for the management and administrative staff for "Sweet Potatoes" clothing factory to accommodate two partners and eleven employees. All interior furnishings, walls, floors, ceilings, lighting, built-in cabinets, desks, storage, chairs, tables, custom fitted ...
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The Personal Workplace - New System of Office Furniture
1988 to
1990
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 ...
Contents
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Sketches for the Office Furniture Systems: Sketches of office spaces from Christopher Alexander's notebook
01/04/1985
Two blue-ink sketches depicting office environment design proposals. The first sketch refers to one of the five watercolor paintings and depicts a big room with a high ceiling, and has an arch on the wall and a big table with ...
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Watercolor sketches for the projects related with "The Personal Workplace - New System of Office Furniture": Five full page watercolor sketches from Christopher Alexander's notebook
01/12/1985
Five full page watercolor sketches for the Office Furniture Systems: 1) Grey desk with blue bench and yellow stool; 2) Long alcove with counter and green drawers below; 3) Office with red desk and red wall frieze with yellow spades; ...
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Sketches with watercolor patterns from Christopher Alexander's notebook on the office furniture systems
01/12/1985
Two pen-sketches depicting wall panels with colored patterns.
References
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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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Color and Inner Light: The Eleven Color Properties
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 ...