3.29.10 | Where is design headed? Just what exactly is good design today, and how can anyone qualify it that way? In recent years, design has become more integrated and elevated in our collective psyche. During a panel discussion at the Ninth Annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show in New York last week, John Bricker of Gensler and Swantje Roessner from BMW set out to navigate an audience through the complex territory of the role of designers today.
3.29.10 | In part I of this article, I suggested that interior design is bringing needed influences to the built environment to facilitate the age-old function of information flow. Branding and collaboration have become major themes. The growing scope and importance of branding was stressed by John Brinker, Gensler, as a panel participant on the Future of Design moderated by Cheryl Durst at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show in NYC. (See Future of Design this issue.)
Random Walk >>
3.29.10| Many Hollywood blockbusters generate sequels, and the IIDA Northern California Chapter knows a thing or two about doing things on a cinematic scale, so last Thursday night and for the second consecutive year, it combined its Pioneers in Design and Honor Awards events into a single stellar evening. Over 600 members of the design community returned to Oakland’s art deco Fox Theatre and swept past movie-themed posters created by event sponsors including the Herman Miller/CRI/Geiger Now You’re Cooking spoof of 2009’s hit Julie & Julia.
Kimball: HUM! Minds At Work #4 – Cognition: Working memory by Terry Carroll, Kent Reyling, and Jay Henriott 3.29.10 The brain has two types of memory: working and long-term. This column will cover working memory, where data is temporarily stored until a task is complete, or committed
Research >>
3.29.10 | Exemplis Corporation, which distributes seating under the SitOnIt Seating and IDEON brands, has named highly regarded industry veteran Rod Ganiard as Executive Vice President in a new position responsible for business development reporting directly to Paul DeVries, Chief Executive Officer.
People >>
3.22.10 | In any design project, many questions need to get asked before
results can be achieved. The types of questions designers and their
clients ask each other are constantly in flux: How is the usability of an
object, from a free standing building to a piece of furniture, determined
over the course of its life? What is more important, the integration of
sustainable practices before a product is made or after it has reached
the end of its usable life?
A&D Firms >>, Environment >>
3.22.10 | One interpretation of Jane Jacobs’s seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage 1961), is that architecture has lost its way as an important tool of information distribution. Well, lost its way may not be the proper phrase. How about, stuck in the middle ages.
Random Walk >>
3.22.10| Would you be surprised to learn that you could help your clients save 21 cents on every dollar? Depending on effective tax rates and discount rates, a Cost Segregation Study can save your clients, on a net present value basis, $210 per $1,000 of property reclassified from long life to shorter life depreciation categories.
3.22.10 | There is a growing tension between space efficiency and image-appropriate productive workspace. When Johnson Financial Group planned the opening of its newest bank branch in Madison, WI, the international financial firm with locations in WI, AZ., and Switzerland, wanted to portray its corporate image of integrity, respect and trust and wanted furnishings that projected those qualities, while providing efficient space division.
Project >>
3.22.10 | Have you ever walked into someone’s office only to face giant mounds of paper piled upon their desk and overflowing onto any available surface? Chances are you may have thought, “How does this person find anything or get work done?” It might be hard to fathom, but that person can probably locate any requested file almost immediately.
Research >>
3.22.10| In the new year, Perkins+Will acquired a new, larger office space for its Philadelphia office, now located at the Bell Atlantic Building at 1717 Arch Street, Suite 3920, at the corner of N. 18thStreet. To accommodate its growing Philadelphia presence and company goal of environmental responsibility, the firm adapted office space from a like-minded firm L2 Architecture, a firm with similar design aesthetic.
Project >>
3.15.10 | When I first met Ken Gibson, he was busy in his showroom at the New York Design Center supervising the arrival and installation of a new shipment of furniture. It struck me as a sort of timeless scenario; a furniture industry veteran educating his staff on the optimum placement of a piece of furniture – in this case, a credenza – so that it looks good and is congruent with its surroundings. Reconciling the form and function of any piece of furniture within the footprint of a showroom is a thankless task, especially if it is done so well as to appear effortless.
Manufacturing >>, People >>
3.15.10 | Attendees at the New York Design Center experienced a rewarding journey last Wednesday at the third installment of NYDC’s Design 4 Healthcare series. The New York office of HOK arrived at a packed Maxon (an HNI company) showroom with five senior professionals to talk about their soon-to-be-completed Patient Pavilion for the Harlem Hospital. HOK’s patient-centered care design integrates inpatient, emergency room, and outpatient services under one roof. The new Patient Pavilion uses art, light, and color in a therapeutic manner that engages the greater community as well as the patients.
3.15.10 | Mullen, a full service advertising firm, was moving from its suburban Boston location to its present address at 40 Broad Street, Boston, MA. What better time to position itself for the future? Boston has one of the densest concentrations of young talent in the country, due to the multitude of higher educational institutions.
Project >>
3.8.10 | I was invited to join Contract magazine and its Editorial
Advisory Committee at the publication’s annual Design Summit, last year
held in Austin, TX. This gathering of august architects and designers practicing interior
design/architecture (take your pick), seemed to have a good time
listening to the two featured presentations:
>Second Life - a virtual reality technology and consulting
business, as well as the host of the public web site of the same
name
>Frank Duffy - the noted British architect, writer and thinker who presented some of the ideas from his new book Work and the City, 80 pages, (2008 Black Dog Publishing).
Environment >>, Events >>, Research >>
3.8.10 | Every day I get a Google Alert on green leases. I dutifully read them and then click on the various twits, blogs and websites listed in the alert. Sometimes there will be a well researched nugget. The typical article, however, is riddled with misconceptions, faulty assumptions, and over-simplification of the leasing process. Far too often, the authors do not grasp real estate economics or common building operating practices.
3.8.10 | It may be a new name to many designers in the States, but Mokum Textiles has been established in its native Australia for over 30 years. The name of the company is derived from a sentimental Yiddish nickname for the city of Amsterdam. Mokum’s new collection, Moderne, is just as elegant and globe-spanning as the company’s namesake.
3.8.10 | Ted Moudis Associates (TMA) is hot. Other firms might be laying off, but TMA has been picking up some of the talent. The firm has the results to show for it. Recently it received two architectural design awards for its clients, Société Générale and Cottingham & Butler. Both projects received Awards of Merit from Midwest Construction magazine.
A&D Firms >>, Competitions and Awards >>
3.1.10 | What is virtual reality? How does it differ from digital reality? Is it real? What is reality? Perhaps the greatest ramification flowing from the development of virtual reality – presently, largely a visual subset of digital reality – is the perspective it creates on our notion of reality. Obviously, without a contrasting experience, it is very difficult for us to understand our existential notions of reality.
Technology >>
3.1.10 | I always wondered why Material ConneXion was spelled that way. . . and why is that X capitalized? It was clearly a choice that emphasized a deliberate intent of the company, but the intent was remained a mystery until I visited the firm’s new space, located at 60 Madison Avenue in New York. I was aware of Material ConneXion’s status as a global material consultancy – the firm has four other locations, two in Europe and two in Asia, each with a capital X of a different color in its logo – and knew it focused on materials for construction and design, but as a resource librarian, I noticed it didn’t catalog materials the way that I or my fellow resource librarians did. During my visit I realized that Material ConneXion is a unique company that, in the end, expertly indexes what is possible in manufacturing and design.
3.1.10 | Mr. Smed has the rare entrepreneurial combination of insight and predisposition to act. Fortunately, to this is added the ability to see things as a whole, and what amounts to almost a compulsion to do things better ( environmentally and for clients) and more efficiently. As a result, anyone with an open mind can find morsels of value and inspiration in his presentations.
Random Walk >>
3.1.10 | While the idea of cognitive ergonomics is relatively new, it’s a concept that Kimball Office has spent years studying. In order to fully understand how the mind works at work, we must first recognize the office environment in which we work, and how such dynamics complement the mind. This column aims to identify the variables in an office setting, and the impact they can have on how the mind works.
Research >>
