Photograph

Hermann Miller New Office Furniture System: Japanese Silk Panel – Photographs

01/01/1988

Finalized Piece of Office Furniture

Three views of the Japanese Silk Panel, with the wall lights above it, fully functioning prototype pieces of office furniture.

Photographer:

Artemis Anninou/C.E.S., Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Source:

Digital, Slide

Characteristics:

Color

Content of

Construction Innovation

Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Japanese silk panels 1988

Work of Art for Project, Office Furniture Prototype

Created by:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black

Panels of hand made japanese silk, no two alike; shining colors, beautiful drawing. To be used either as wall decoration mounted on the wall, or as pin boards for pinning notices and miscellaneous notes. Each panel has a cork/celotex backing ...

Contents

Photographs

References

Scientific Research

Color and Inner Light: The Eleven Color Properties

Areas of focus:

Structure of Space

Guiding idea:

Centers and Fields of Centers

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 ...

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 ...

Drawings