Correspondence

Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Response to the set of eleven principles set forth by Christopher Alexander in a previous letter for the Personal Workplace Project to continue. Some items are agreed upon and some are refused or commented upon. Fax also includes a copy of the original letter by Christopher Alexander. A copy of the response with Christophers handwritten notes is also included

27/10/1989

Progress of Works, Notification

Sender:

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

Recipient:

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

Medium:

Fax

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 ...

Contents

Correspondence

References

Correspondence