Herman Miller New Office Furniture System: Status Reports

01/01/1989

Progress of Works, Outstanding Issues, Cost Estimate

Nine pages with data on the status of the development process for the following six pieces of furniture: Executive Desk, Working Armchair, Cuttable Worksurface, Japanese Silk Panel, Rolling File Cabinet and Rolling Bench. Data include an overall summary, engineering development costs and a list of problems to be solved. There are also three lists, namely a list of 17 pieces of furniture, a list of estimated development and actual costs for the years 1988-89, and a list of items which might come later .

Authors:

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

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 ...