by Brianna Crandall — June 13, 2014—Global furniture manufacturer and distributor Herman Miller, Inc., built on the momentum of its Living Office launch and unveiled new tools, information, and dynamic new furniture designs to help organizations address the new landscape of work at this week’s NeoCon contract furnishings show in Chicago. The Herman Miller Showroom and its execution of a Living Office earned distinction as the best large showroom in the Showroom and Booth Design Competition for the second consecutive year.
In addition, Herman Miller Healthcare continues to be recognized as a leader in healing spaces and furniture for the fifth year in a row as Nemschoff’s Palisade Collection earned the Best of NeoCon Silver Award for the Healthcare: Guest/Lounge Seating category in the Best of NeoCon 2014 Competition, which recognizes state-of-the-art product design, technological innovation and environmental sustainability. The Living Office concept and Nemschoff’s Palisade are described below, and some of the specific products that are elements of the Living Office will be described in future FMLink articles.
Living Office
In 2013, Herman Miller introduced Living Office, an enlightened and more human-centered framework to approach contemporary office design. Continuing the company’s legacy of leadership in the design of the modern workplace, Living Office addresses wants and needs that are fundamental to all humans, while adaptive to the unique purpose, character and activities of individuals and organizations. Ultimately, Herman Miller’s Living Office seeks to inspire and enable a more natural and desirable workplace, fostering greater connection, creativity, productivity, and prosperity for all.
The company’s holistic approach to creating more natural, efficient, and desirable workplaces is a culmination of research on how people actually do work. This year Herman Miller demonstrated the concept by creating a real Living Office designed to meet the needs of its own Chicago-based employees. The company’s showroom demonstrated this actual office, and featured an interactive display area explaining how to create a Living Office, as well as a simulated mock-up space demonstrating the company’s ability to serve its client partners with their own customized space specifically designed for them to live and work at their best.
Herman Miller has used extensive research to identify six key work motivations that all people intuitively seek in a workplace, considering each in relation to the individual, group, cognitive, and physical experience: Security, Autonomy, Belonging, Achievement, Status, and Purpose. Each Living Office also relies on an understanding of business purpose and priorities, and reflects character attributes that help define an organization’s essential nature: Constant to Adaptable, Uniform to Diverse, Formal to Casual, Closed to Open, Physical to Virtual, Local to Global, Independent to Interdependent, and Directed to Self-Directed.
Greg Parsons, Herman Miller’s vice president, New Landscape of Work, noted, “Today’s technologies allow us to work anywhere. So why come to an office at all? Living Office aims to provide to knowledge workers what the stage or recording studio offers to musicians—an environment optimized to inspire and enable people’s ultimate performance. By deeply understanding human motivations and their corollaries in space design, Living Office enhances both performance and satisfaction.”
Living Office provides people with 10 distinct workplace settings to support a variety of fundamental activities such as conversing, contemplating and creating, identified as: Haven, Hive, Jump Space, Clubhouse, Cove, Meeting Space, Landing, Workshop, Forum and Plaza.
Building on the growing momentum of Living Office, at NeoCon 2014 Herman Miller unveiled new tools, information, and dynamic new furniture designs to help organizations achieve their own Living Office, including: Locale and Public Office Landscape systems, Renew sit-to-stand table, Mirra 2 with TriFlex 2 back chair, Logic power access solutions, and several pieces in the Herman Miller Collection. Many of these products which will be detailed in upcoming FMLink articles.
Nemschoff’s new Silver Award-winning Palisade Collection is designed to recognize “the support of family and friends that is so critical to the patient experience” and to encourage guest participation in the healing process by creating an accommodating and responsive setting within the patient room.
Palisade is based on research that shows the presence of family members can improve patient outcomes, communication, and satisfaction. Family support can also lower the potential of patient injury, thus reducing costs, as shown in a recent study at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. By providing family areas in patient rooms, patient falls were reportedly cut by two-thirds compared to rooms with no family area.
The Palisade collection features seating, technology support, lighting, storage, sleeping, and work space. Designed for Nemschoff by Jess Sorel of Sorel Studio, Palisade supports multiple functions within the patient room footprint while providing the flexibility to support the continuous changes in healthcare facilities.
Maximizing hospitals’ use of space, Palisade includes a sofa that converts to a sleep surface, open and intuitive storage, a guest stool that is designed to sit next to the bed and supports eye-level guest-to-patient interactions, and a mobile table with legs that slide under the sofa for a more efficient footprint.
