Correspondence

Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: A draft letter addressing the founder of Herman Miller Inc., in a last-ditch attempt to save the Personal Workplace Project with his company. Appealing for his intervention to help resurrecting the project and apologizing for this intrusion. Handwritten notes in margins

12/11/1989

Status of Project, Project Revival

Sender:

Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Recipient:

D.J. DePree CEO, Herman Miller Inc., Zeeland, MI, U.S.A.

Medium:

Letter

Content of

Project

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 ...

References

Correspondence

Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: After Christopher Alexander's many recent occasions that work was stopping due to issues, this letter is stating the end of Herman Miller, Inc. funding in support of the Personal Workplace Project, effective 30-Nov-1989. It comes after a long struggle to gain agreement on issues of compensation, royalties, overheads, budget, and funding 08/11/1989

Project, Status of Project, Termination of Contract

Sender:

Robert Harvey, Herman Miller Inc., Zeeland, MI, U.S.A.

Recipient:

Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure , Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Letter