8.30.10 | Inscape, redoubling it’s efforts to create a strong presence in the NYC market, has acquired the intellectual property – including the trademarks, designs and proprietary tooling – of Acme Architectural Walls and has entered into a contract with Acme Sales Group, recently formed by the former owners of Acme.
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8.30.10 | Skyline Glass is founded on the desire to find new ways to push creativity. “When we started, through naiveté we discovered new qualities about this material. We were a group of artists looking beyond the normal way of thinking, and we discovered new things.”
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8.30.10 | In the public mind there is no understanding about what interior design is, not even confusion. So, at one end of the definitional spectrum we have the know-nothings. At the other end, we find the regulators and qualifiers, NCIDQ, the know-too-muchers or kitchen-sinkers.
Random Walk >>
8.30.10 | Who said that LEED certification points for energy saving aren’t worth a plugged nickel without yearly commissioning? Half of new buildings fail to realize their full energy savings potential. But, Convia has technology that makes it easy to commission a space on an ongoing basis.
8.30.10 | The visual and audible distance between team members is critical in fostering communication required for solid interaction. The old adage of “out of sight, out of mind” holds true in collaboration.
8.30.10 | Na Wang’s exquisitely thorough and thoughtful dissertation research investigates our emotional, attitudinal, and cognitive responses to sunlight, window views, privacy, and control. Her findings have important repercussions for workplace design.
8.23.10 | The design community has to choose how it wants its work presented and it must realize that this is an 80/20 industry with the 20% deciding where the media investments go. The editorial pages follow the advertising dollars. Contract is the only magazine that relies strictly on the commercial design industry for its revenue and, accordingly, has always presented the value of design in terms of a business return on investment.
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8.23.10 | Far from following the herd of manufacturers rushing to release yet another “me too” product, Canadian furniture company Inscape held an A&D launch event for their latest system named Tisch. Taking place at the prestigious New York event space The Glass Houses, the gathering of notable designers and industry influencers was invited to inspect the new system thoroughly, see its capabilities, and interact with Inscape’s management on the practical uses for this system.
Aesthetics in architecture and design should be, and is being, studied. A recent study found that participants had highly consistent individual preferences for particular rectangle shapes. Overall results, however, provide little or no support for the special status of the Golden Section/Ratio; few participants showed preferences that could be said to be at the Golden Section.
Herman Miller is no “Johnny come lately” to the furnishing of healthcare facilities; in fact they have been at it for about 40 years. With the launch of the Compass Healthcare System, it demonstrated once again that it is a leader among those that do rigorous, real, honest-to-goodness research to inform their new product efforts.
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Pictorials of interiors fall grievously short in characterizing a space, or reminding us all of the multiplicity of factors that architects and designers must take into account in their designs. Cerami & Associates is a firm that specializes in acoustics and other mechanical vibrations that can make a big difference in the performance of any space.
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In order for designers and office managers to create effective and flexible work environments, they must recognize three zones of organization – now, soon and later – and that the user traditionally personalizes them.
A great new body of must-know knowledge for interior designers – Space syntax – is a highly ordered system for assessing or predicting occupant behavior following from particular space plans. Its tenets can be directly applied, or can be used to inspire easier to implement research programs.
