Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Photographs of office layout process by users

01/03/1989

Design Process

Example of a private office layout by Robert Links, law office manager. Three images of the office layout out, including: a paper model to scale; the new office layout hardline plan; and the currently used office at the time, as comparison. There is an additional fourth image which portrays the user.

Photographer:

Christopher Alexander/C.E.S., Martinez, CA, U.S.A.

Source:

Slide

Characteristics:

B&W

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

Photographs

SEE ALL Photographs

References

Scientific Research

Reports

Herman Miller Furniture Systems: The Personal Workplace - A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Vol 4. Examples of Private Offices Designed by Different Managers 01/01/1988

Project, Project Report

Authors:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black, Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

54-page document which provides examples of office layouts made by users of offices, demonstrating the results of the proposed layout process. Its Table of Contents are the following: 1. Introduction; 2. Process; 3. Examples of Offices Designed by Different Managers; ...

Records

Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Office Layout Process; a set of sketches and notes from thirteen individuals who participated in a test experiment led by C.E.S., for which C.E.S. provided a step-by-step generating sequence which allowed each person to work out the ideal layout of his/her own office step by step, and then realize it by building it in the movable cardboard model 01/03/1989

Project, Design Matters, Layout Process

Sketches with brief comments on the existing work conditions, twenty six pages in total, produced by the thirteen participants in the C.E.S. office experiment, for testing the office layout rules: 1. Pirko Luckhesie, Architect; 2. Alex Bloom, Software Development; 3. ...