Record

Haworth New Office Furniture System: Office Furniture studies to get distribution of materials

01/01/1985

Design Matters, Design Standards

7-page proposal of six different possibilities of optimal distribution of visible material in an office space; it includes theoretical and tested proposals.

Authors:

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

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Content of

Project

New System of Office Furniture for Haworth, Inc. 1985 to 1986

Holland, MI, U.S.A.

Office Furniture, Designed , Furniture prototypes built by C.E.S.

Client:

Haworth Manufacturing, Inc. - Tom Hench

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, Artemis Anninou, Gary Black, Mark Brinner

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:

Pattern language for project by C.E.S. Generic rules for office layout process Use of full scale mock-ups Fabrication of full size furniture prototypes by C.E.S. Design Development drawings done after fabrication

The new system of office furniture, intended for mass production, was designed in such a way as to be capable of creating the environment for millions of workers, in an endless variety of specific configurations. The line of furniture provided ...

References

Scientific Research

Strong Centers in all Levels of Scale

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Structure Preserving Transformations

A building can only amount to something as a living thing when the various physical elements which appear in it are profound centers. The dominant feature of the process that is working correctly is that new centers are formed, and ...

Reports

Haworth New Office Furniture System: Basic Sketch of Theory and Physical Characteristics of the Office Furniture 01/09/1985

Project, Project Report

Authors:

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

41-page early report addressing the following six topics: 1) Fifty Key Elements; 2) Customer Variables and Builder Variables; 3) Price of Variables; 4) Manufacturing of Elements; 5) Speed of Production; 6) Franchised Local Production Shops; 7) Cuttable Modifiable Materials.

Photographs

Haworth New Office Furniture System: Photographs of model 01/09/1985

Project, Model

Photographer:

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

Source:

Slide

Characteristics:

Color

Photos of the three out of the six material boards, prepared to indicate the distribution of all visible surfaces by percentage. The first photo depicts Model #3 and includes the following material –natural wood, painted wood, blue silk, transparent glass, ...