5.26.08 | Sustainable design got a very visible boost this week with the opening of Haworth’'s radically reworked headquarters building. Heralded during its design and construction phases as a model of environmental sensitivity, the structure unveiled on May 21 delivers convincingly on its promise.

5.26.08 | Configura. The word rolls off the tongue as easily as the images nimbly flow from the fingers with its impressive presentation and specification software, CET Designer. As indicated in a previous issue (officeinsight 5.5.08), Configura (NeoCon Booth 7-7046) appears to be in a head-to-head race with the similarly facile with Ice Business Solutions’ ICE java tool to win the hearts, minds and imaginations of dealers, designers and clients.

5.26.08 | Steelcase is definitely heating up, with its support of A&D (see officeinsight 3.24.08, Dan Chong and Design Community Collaboration and 8.13.07 Steelcase’s Applied Research Consulting), its dealerships (officeinsight this issue, Configura), its focus on the environment (officeinsight 5.12.08, SeaChange at Steelcase), and in its product offerings. Last week we indicated that it will be a Steelcase year at NeoCon World Trade Fair 08. It’s new mega-showroom on the 3^rd floor of the at the Merchandise Mart should be something to behold. 

5.26.08 | Colebrook, Bosson, Saunders caught my attention over ten years ago when I was trying to find a way to get an 85lb, 21 inch CRT off of my desk. While flat-screen monitors were not price-attractive in those days, at least CBS was thinking along the same lines as I was, and was offering more elegance than was typically of the upright computer carts found in hospitals.

5.19.08 | There are many things about Humanscale that are difficult not to admire. The first is that the company is grounded on ergonomics – call it human factors or just plain people-centric – gives a healthy shift to the focus on sustainability that is too often lost in a rush to obtain LEED certification or to save the planet. It'’s not that human centricity is the best perspective for solving our environmental problems, it’s not. But by appealing to human nature- –the aggrandizement of the species and the self- –we are most likely to save the Earth as an enjoyable human habitat.

5.12.08 | Steelcase and Jeannie Bochette organized an event of Shakespearian import a couple of weeks ago. Presented by Roger Payne (biologist) and Lisa Harrow (actress and author) of the SeaChange Institute, SeaChange: Reversing the Tide is performance art that combines science and poetry to make the point that “man is not the overseer of life but an integral part of life’s complex web, and that our survival requires that we attend not just to our own wellbeing, but also to the wellbeing of the entire web of life.”