Book Chapter

Chapter 12. The Uniqueness of People’s Individual Worlds: 10 / Office Layout Process

Book title:

The Nature of Order – An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three – A Vision of a Living World

Pages:

386-397

Content of

Book

The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. Book Three - A Vision of a Living World 2005

Authors:

Christopher Alexander

Publisher:

The Center for Environmental Structure Publishing, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

No of pages:

697 pp

“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...

References

Scientific Research

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 ...

Works of Art

Watercolor 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 1985

Personal Work of Art, Painting

Created by:

Christopher Alexander

The 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 ...