Herman Miller Furniture Systems: The Personal Workplace – A System of Office Furniture Designed for Comfort: Vol 9. New Business Plan – Development, Production, Sales and Marketing

01/02/1990

Project Report

10-page draft document addressing the 28 basic assumptions for its development under the heading “Low program-cost evolutionary approach to development of the personal workplace”.

Authors:

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

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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 ...

References

Manuscripts

Herman Miller Furniture Systems: The Personal Workspace. Volume 9 Business Plan 01/01/1989

Project, Project Report Draft

Authors:

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

12 page draft of The Personal Workspace. A system of office furniture designed for Comfort. Volume number 9, Business Plan Development, Production, Sales and Marketing. A list of tasks and their assignments is at the end. The entire document is ...

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