4.14.08 | As Modern architecture ages to a point where preservation is necessary, the methods and technology used in this preservation have to be carefully considered to maintain the design integrity of the building. Theodore H.M. Prudon’s (PhD, FAIA) Preservation Of Modern Architecture (published by Wiley) provides useful guidance, with many case studies, for the professional architect interested in a broad background in preservation as a field as well as specific material and technology issues in preservation.

3.17.08 | We are advised that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Through such maxims, we are led to believe that individual aesthetic tastes are random and unpredictable, subject to the winds of fashion! Design school spits us out into professional practice, and no one has told us otherwise.

3.17.08 | Haworth has partnered with Johnson Controls, a global leader in automotive experience, building efficiency and power solutions, to launch a research project called OXYGENZ - a global survey of Generation Y (18-25 year-olds) to understand their preferences for their future workplace.

3.3.08 | To some, “BIFMA” is just a funny way to spell boring, but this year’s Annual Leadership Conference (our first) in St. Petersburg, FL, was anything but. Not only were the presentations at this annual retreat of executives of the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association fit for an audience of designers, facilities managers (or just about anyone else), but, indeed, designers were there to make some of the presentations, and Michael Alin, Executive Director of ASID, was there to represent his organization, as were Mark Strauss, Publisher of Interior Design magazine, and John Rouse, Publisher of Contract. We definitely need much more of this cross-pollination and collaboration, but it is a start.

3.3.08 | The interaction of design and human behavior is of fundamental importance. In the words of Winston Churchill: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Substitute “environments” for “buildings” and we have a thoroughly modern conception of what we are about in creating the built environment. The relationship between humans and their environment, however, is anything but simple, and certainly not as linear or sequential as the quotation may suggest.