Hasta La Ideas

Product news: London studio Industrial Facility has designed an office furniture system for American manufacturer Herman Miller that promotes interaction in the workplace (+ slideshow).

Industrial Facility created cantilevered tables with rounded edges to encourage movement and provide space for users to gather round work stations as they would around a meeting table.

Low, linear units covered in vertical planking combine to create a unifying spine along which modules acting as desks, social areas, meeting tables and a library can be arranged.

Screens wrap around the desks to provide privacy, while the height of tables, screens, easels and storage can be adjusted to create a more personal and less rigid arrangement.

“One could argue that collaboration is a buzzword right now, that somehow it might go away, but we think this is unimaginable,” says Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility. “People are collaborating globally, empowered by digital networks, but the most ambitious businesses still need productive, collaborative physical environments.”

The system was presented as part of Herman Miller’s Living Office project at the Neocon trade fair in Chicago last week, alongside modular office furniture by Yves Behar’s San Francisco studio Fuseproject.

Sam Hecht and Kim Colin of Industrial Facility previously collaborated with Herman Miller on a two-tier work table with a sliding surface, and launched new products in Milan this year including a lamp that projects light onto the tabletop and a three-legged wooden stool.

More design by Industrial Facility »
More design by Herman Miller »
More office furniture design »

Here’s some more information from Industrial Facility:

Locale Office Furniture

What is work today? It is as much about the individual as it is about the company. It is the individual who brings an organization to life. An organisation benefits from creating an office environment that connects people in a more natural way. The reason to come to work is to work together, to collaborate. Herman Miller, Living Office.

Locale is an intelligent office furniture system that previewed at NeoCon 2013 as part of Herman Miller’s Living Office. Locale promotes collaboration at work by creating dynamic, high-performance neighborhoods that allow for free movement, variety and adjustability. Locale makes working together simpler and more pleasurable by promoting interaction around large, adjustable tables, and by fostering easy transition between focussed work and collaboration. Cantilevered, rounded work surfaces give individuals more space to change position throughout the day and can easily accommodate multiple colleagues to sit or stand together without the clutter of legs at floor level. Locale simplifies the usual chaos of collaborative work and cleverly balances individual and group needs within an open plan office.

Background

Locale has been in development for more than two years. During this time, the conditions of work in terms of atmosphere and attitude have shifted, so it was important that Industrial Facility leapfrog any old preconceptions of the modern office and propose a new place based on deeper social and cultural changes. Herman Miller research noted early in the project that the office now should become ‘a place you want to be’ rather than ‘a place you need to be’. However, Hecht and Colin remained suspicious of recent efforts to evoke a kind of forced playfulness in the office to achieve this. Locale addresses a significant paradigm shift that sees in-person communication as increasingly relevant to productivity, effectiveness and enjoyment at work.

Design

“We often talk about how social networks behave given current technology, where close relationships are not based on physical proximity, but instead on similarity of purpose or interest. You might make an alliance in a social network with someone who is very far away but very close to you in other ways. They are great spatial condensers in this respect. Locale is a physical manifestation of this principle, where the most relevant participants are kept close and communication is fast and frequent.” Kim Colin

Locale organizes the office into clusters of activity along a Workbase, a linear, low, architectonic element that helps give definition and organisation to the open-plan office. Distinct clusters are composed out of different functional modules; the result is that seemingly disparate functions of the office reside comfortably together along one line of the Workbase, which organizes the plan orthogonally. The library, the social setting, the working desk, and the meeting table are all close by and visually coherent along the Workbase. Useful mobile pieces (height-adjustable tables, screens, easels, storage, a refreshment unit) can be ‘pulled up’ to customize the group and individual settings off the Workbase, making an even richer neighborhood. Clusters can be wider or narrower, with adjacencies nearer or further, depending on need.

Spontaneous interaction or unplanned communication increases productivity at work and Locale encourages this in the open plan office without relying on broader architectural-scale social devices like open stairs and community eating areas. Screens attached to the Workbase or parallel and perpendicular desks allow a balance of visual separation and porisity in the cluster. A lot of engineering effort was spent getting rid of legs on the desks and in creating a mobile table and accessories program so that work can occur easily, sitting or standing in a variety of settings.

Locale brings different parts of the office together in proximity so you shouldn’t have to go away to talk to a colleague in a more conducive manner. Instead, you can raise a table, stand, and discuss. You don’t have to move to completely separate spaces to accommodate varied work styles. Locale is planned for availability in the Winter of 2013.

Facts

A third of working people are now mobile, up from a quarter since 2006. The world’s top companies spend 40% of their time collaborating, compared with 21% on focussed work. A healthy work life is one that lets you adjust. To sit, to stand and to walk will let you work better and live longer.

Kim Colin – “We find a lot of value in our own office, which is small, highly productive and considerate. We are all from different parts of the world, which says a lot about how the free movement of people has created a multi-dimensional condition. We collaborate constantly about ideas, methods and opinions. We travel a lot. Our work is never created in cultural isolation, and therefore our office itself behaves like a good, condensed international neighborhood, which is efficient, energetic and pleasurable.”

Sam Hecht – “One could argue that collaboration is a buzzword right now, that somehow it might go away, but we think this is unimaginable. People are collaborating globally, empowered by digital networks, but the most ambitious businesses still need productive, collaborative physical environments. The offices we visited during our research—places where people want to work—are open-plan, transparent, and energetic.”

Client: Herman Miller Inc.
Design: Sam Hecht & Kim Colin, Industrial Facility
Award: NeoCon 2013 Silver Award

The post Locale Office Furniture by Industrial Facility
for Herman Miller appeared first on Dezeen.

Taking the basketball hoop with an iconographical approach, Bucket is a versatile structure – by flipping upside down, it can be used as a stool..

Swedish designers Glimpt worked with Peruvian artisans to produce the hand-carved wooden bases for these coffee tables (+ slideshow).

Mattias Rask and Tor Palm of Glimpt travelled to the village of Yungay in Peru to research the techniques used by woodworkers at a workshop run by voluntary organisation, Artesanos Don Bosco.

They designed a range of contemporary tables that make use of the facilities provided to artisans, who are taught furniture-making skills to encourage them to stay and work locally, rather than moving to the cities.

The bases are made from local timber, including a hard white wood called Lengha, and a type of cedar. The wood is turned on a lathe before the faceted decoration is chiselled by hand and painted.

Explaining how the project came about, Rask told Dezeen: “We sent an email to a Swedish guy in Lima and asked him about crafts organisations in Peru; he basically said that Artesanos Don Bosco are the best artisans in Peru, so we sent them an email!”

Prehistoric Aliens will continue to be produced in Yungay and was presented by Italian furniture brand Cappellini as part of its Cappellini NEXT collection in Milan earlier this year.

Glimpt collaborates with artisans around the world and previously created a range of stools made from seagrass in Vietnam, and ceramic lights painted to look like strawberries produced by craftsmen in South Africa.

See all design by Glimpt »
See all furniture »

Still life photography is by Daniel Thrue.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Glimpt of Peru – Prehistoric Aliens

We spent the autumn of 2012 in Peru working and learning from the Crafts Cooperative, Artesanos Don Bosco, a continuation of our work with craftsmen and women from different countries.

Before our trip we had not fully appreciated how extensive this organisation was. Artesanos Don Bosco is part of a large Italian voluntary organisation called Operazione Mato Grosso. This organisation was founded in the 1960s by Father Hugo, a Catholic missionary priest who saw there was a need to help poor farmers in the Andes. Now, some fifty years later, Operazione Mato Grosso has roughly 2000 Italian volunteers and employs about twice as many Peruvians.

The work involves educating and training people in the remote villages in the Andes, and then creating employment opportunities for them there. The idea is to encourage people to stay and work in these isolated areas rather than move to a very uncertain future in Lima, something that many Peruvians otherwise are tempted to do.

Operazione Mato Grosso promotes the virtues of a simple, unhurried life, living and working in cooperation with one another. They have started schools, orphanages, hospitals and even power stations that provide electric power in the mountains. All this is free of charge for the poor.

One part of this organisation, called Artesanos Don Bosco, provides craftsmanship training. After five years training with ADB most of the artisans then work in the organisation’s cooperative. The courses they give are mainly related to different ways of working with wood. This includes furniture making, decorations, carving pictures and the construction of housing. They also teach stone masonry, how to make glass, different ways of working with textiles and even metal work.

We decided we wanted to help them develop a more modern series of furniture. After having visited several villages and different cooperatives in the Andes we finally settled on Yungay as the village where we would set to work. In Yungay there was a little cooperative that worked with furniture making. During our visits we were impressed by their very high standards of craftsmanship and above all by the skill of the people who carved pictures in wood.

So day after day of soup followed by fried guinea-pigs and washed down with Inca Cola finally lead to the production of a series of coffee tables called Prehistoric Aliens. Our main difficulty was not a shortage of good ideas but rather the language barrier. Neither of us spoke any Spanish but we were faced with a situation where this was the only possible language for communication.

The first few weeks we had been helped by our American friend Nick, but after a while we had to manage by ourselves. After keen language practice on the computer every evening, and getting a lot of hands on experience every day in the workshops, we finally managed to make some Spanish sounding words and were rewarded with the nicknames Gordo and Chato (Chubby and Shorty) by our fellow workers.

Marcial, Barosso, Aristares and Messias taught us alot and we hope we have taught them something as well. It has been a good experience living and working with them. Hopefully our collaboration will provide them with more work so that they can keep on developing their skills and supporting their families, as well as contributing to the great work of Artesanos Don Bosco and Operazione Mato Grosso.

The name, Prehistoric Aliens, was inspired by Peru’s fantastic cultural heritage which often seems very mystical and ancient to our western eyes.

The small coffee tables are almost like small spaceships that have just landed, with their leader, The Robot.

The post Prehistoric Aliens
by Glimpt appeared first on Dezeen.

Minimal and functional, super hero chair is a stackable chair suitable for indoor and outdoor use. It is lightweight, without excessive ornaments. Dyn..

News: Italian furniture brand Kartell has announced that it will launch 50 flagship stores across China in the next five years.

Kartell has partnered with Chinese luxury goods company Gold Bond Enterprises, which is helping to manage Kartell’s rapid expansion in the country.

The first store opened in Beijing on 30 May and was designed by Kartell’s artistic director, Ferruccio Laviani, to “emphasize the quality, high design content, richness of materials and glamour associated with the brand.” New stores are scheduled to open in Shanghai and Chengdu over the summer.

“China, because of its size, importance and the complexity as a market required a targeted and wide-ranging plan,” said president and managing director of Kartell Claudio Luti, adding that the partnership with the Chinese company would help to “achieve concrete results in both the residential and the contract areas.”

“I feel that we need to promote Italian creativity around the world,” Luti told Dezeen in an interview last month, when he criticised Italian design companies for failing to invest in overseas expansion in the past, claiming the furniture industry made a “big, big mistake” by staying small and family-oriented while Italian fashion companies “decided to go and sell everywhere in the world.”

Luti has also taken on the presidency of Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile, and told Dezeen about his plans to improve the visitor experience to the world’s most important furniture fair by clarifying its brand and tackling overpriced hotels and transport chaos in the city.

Founded on the production of laboratory equipment and best known now for innovative use of plastics in furniture, Kartell presented several new products in Milan this year, including furniture by Philippe Starck created using the world’s largest single-piece injection moulding and a plastic stool by Tokujin Yoshioka that resembles cut crystal – see all stories about Kartell.

While Kartell looks to expand, design brands around the world are looking for ways to tackle the industry shifts that production in emerging countries including China has generated. Watch our Dezeen and MINI World Tour movie report from Milan in which designers including Tom Dixon and Marcel Wanders talk about the race to keep ahead of skilled copyists.

See all of our stories about China.

Here’s some more information from Kartell:

Kartell in China – 50 single brand stores in 5 years

Kartell announces an intense schedule of single-brand store openings: 50 flagship stores over 5 years in the biggest centres of the Chinese market. The announcement marks the beginning of a partnership with Gold Bond Enterprises, a leader in the Chinese luxury sector. The first city to see the partnership take form is Beijing, where the Kartell flagship store and showroom opened on Thursday, 30 May 2013, in the Sanlitun Village. Summer openings are planned for Shanghai and Chengdu.

Milan, 14 June 2013 – Kartell is pleased to announce that it recently inaugurated its first single-brand store on Thursday, 30 May 2013 in Sanlitun Village as part of the agreement with the Chinese company, Gold Bond Enterprises.

The Beijing flagship store is the first to have a new luxury look designed by Ferruccio Laviani exclusively for Kartell. The design was created specifically to emphasize the quality, high design content, richness of materials, and glamour associated with the brand. Architects, clients and contractors will also be able to see the entire collection in the nearby 400 square-metre showroom.

The Beijing flagship store is only the first of a long series, and by summer 2013 there will be two more openings in Shanghai (at the APM department store, opening soon, and at the Kerry Center) and one in Chengdu at the ICF Mall.

According to Claudio Luti, President and Managing Director of Kartell, “China, because of its size, importance and the complexity as a market required a targeted and wide-ranging plan. That is why we decided to join forces with a Chinese company, a leader in the luxury sector, such as Gold Bond Enterprises, with a 10-year agreement which will allow us to enter this market with the best approach. The GB Kart Ltd. is the result of the joint venture and will represent our brand and distribute Kartell products (rigorously Made in Italy). We are confident that through these synergies we will achieve concrete results in both the residential and the contract areas.”

Linda Lin, President of Gold Bond Enterprises, adds “Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. and Kartell have combined their experience and created GB Kart Ltd. which will develop a single brand retail plan together with Kartell and will distribute its products exclusively in China.” Thanks to Linda Hong Lin’s extensive experience in distribution and Claudio Luti’s continuous design research, this joint venture is an important step in introducing Kartell’s iconic and glamour design to the Chinese market. And it will offer a unique experience to Chinese consumers who are always on the lookout for the latest in Italian excellence.

About Kartell

A leading design company, founded by Giulio Castelli in Milan in 1949, and today under the leadership of Claudio Luti, Kartell is one of the companies that has symbolised Made in Italy design for over 60 years. A success story told through an incredible series of products: lamps, furniture, accessories, and interior design items made of plastic which have become part of the domestic landscape if not veritable icons of contemporary design. Today Kartell has a sales network with 120 single brand stores, 200 shops-in-shop and more than 2500 retailers throughout the world.

About Gold Bond Enterprises

Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd was born out of the passion for style and design. The Chinese company established and headed by Linda Hong Lin since 1993 is a leader in the luxury goods sector with a long line of successes in positioning and development of various prestigious Made in Italy brands in a highly competitive market such as the Chinese one. The mission of Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. has always been to select the companies representing Italian excellence and to make them an integral part of the life of Chinese consumers who are keen for the latest, for elegance and for style. Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. now has 10 of the most prestigious Italian brands and a sales network of about 130 direct single brand stores in China and Hong Kong.

The post Kartell to open 50 stores in China
over the next five years appeared first on Dezeen.