Haworth New Office Furniture System: Versions of distribution of work and items to be produced

01/05/1985

Planning of Works, Work Plan

5 pages regarding the distribution of work to be executed by the C.E.S. and Richardson Smith organized in two groups of elements: thirty two “Enclosure Elements” and thirty four “Free Standing Elements”. Included are also two versions of the list of “Top Twenty Elements” and a page with the required information to be delivered to the clients regarding the initially developed items.

Authors:

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

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 ...