Commercial Flooring

The party everyone talks about but never knows what to call…was the best event for the group yet! Some call it Young Downtown Los Angeles, others No Networking Allowed Event, and only the brave call it 2 Jews and a Blonde Dude…whatever it’s called brought in over 600 guests to the Penthouse Suite of the AT&T Center last night!

Justin Weiss, Azzi Kashani, and Mitch Carricart make up the threesome people call “2 Jews and a Blonde Dude" - a group of friends that were sick of stuffy networking events where the one goal is to get business cards of prospective clients or partners. They started having these events about a year and a half ago and it’s grown into the sensational event it was last night!


This event brings out Los Angeles’ finest from businesses like Northrop Grumman to organizations like the Weingart Association. Tangram sponsored the event with office furnishings from Steelcase and Coalesse…but the hottest part of the design came from a last minute inspiration from our commercial flooring division. Fred McGinn from Tangram Fabricators came through with some sexy red carpet tiles that were strategically placed throughout the space. What a hit!

The chairs were full, the music was pumping and the drinks were flowing. It may have been “No Networking Allowed” but when hundreds of people are crammed up against the bar to get a drink…you get to know each other pretty well! If you’re interested in attending the next event please contact me and I’ll get you on the list!

Debra and I stopped by the Mannington Commercial showroom on the Tuesday after NeoCon, the office interiors event of the year, to see our Los Angeles designer friends compete to win a commercial flooring design competition…and both won!

Athena Abrol (WWCOT) won with her tx:style design named “Blue Matrix” and Laurel Peters-Harrison (AECOM) with her tx:style design named “Rainfall”. They will have a collection in Mannington’s 2010-2011 series! Way to go!

Recently, Tangram Fabricators (the commercial flooring division of Tangram Interiors) was asked to assist our friends at InterfaceFLOR in installing some of their newest products from NeoCon at their showroom in Los Angeles. Our crew helped remove and load the “old” carpet (which was still in great condition) into a truck so that it could be donated to A Better LA - an organization that helps reform gang members.

We received the following note from Abby Lenon at InterfaceFLOR:

“I just want to thank you again for getting two terrific guys over here to help us. Your team worked hard and had such great attitudes. I hope you can share this story to show other how amazing Tangram is.”

Check out the video below to see how the Tangram Lift System can remove your “old” carpet and give your office a fresh new look with minimal disruption to your employees and your business and without the need for removing any of your office furniture.


If you would like to give a fresh new look to your office space design, let us know by clicking on the “Connect with us...” icon on the right.

Tangram Fabricators, the commercial flooring division of Tangram, and Mohawk sponsored a soiree at The Annual Blues Festival in Grant Park on the Sunday before NeoCon - the commercial interior design and office furnishings event of the year!

Even the rain couldn’t dampen the Tangram powerhouse of Jessa Finnegan (Tangram Fabricators) and Paula Christiansen, (Tangram Architectural Solutions) and of course, yours truly.  We all may have needed to huddle under umbrellas to keep our manes from turning to mops, but we were jamming to some amazing blues tunes! We also had the rockstars from Los Angeles with us including Laurence Cartledge (Rottet Studio), Pam Juba (HOK) and our friends from AECOM, Tom, Meredith, Bruce, and Chris!

The heart of Blues still lives in Chicago and we had a blast experiencing it…so much that we even went to a Blues Bar outside of town again on Tuesday night. 

Now you won’t find this design in a catalog, but you will see it on the Tangram Studio website, because Studio designers are constantly trying to come up with innovative office design ideas and concepts that will blow your mind. Now I am not saying this is mind blowing, but I will say I am pretty sure it hasn’t been done before.

Typically we see cork in wine bottles and most recently in commercial flooring. I have taken this material and applied it to what I think is an innovative application. Without applying any resin or filler to it, I have simply applied it to a plexi panel in its raw tile form and created an interesting tack panel. Cork is becoming a popular green material and according to an Ecolect post they believe Cork Mosaic is the forward-looking green material for modern architectural surfaces. These tiles are recycled from the cork stopper industry’s by-product and they come in 1 inch diameter tiles, which is plenty of room for your typical pin or tack! Cork Mosaic in this Penny Round style is perfect for walls and floors (or even tack panels) and is water resistant.

Now I am not certain that the water resistance is a necessary need for office interiors solutions but it doesn’t hurt to know that your tack panel can handle a good in-office water fight! And while one can duck behind their privacy panel in a water brawl and be safe from water damage, they can also be assured their office is helping in the fight to keep our earth green by using sustainable office furniture panels such as these - panels only Tangram Studio can provide!  I look forward to the client who shares a love of this cork concept as much as I do, so I can see this concept come to life one day.

Have you ever been in a rut at work…a slave to a routine? Have you been bogged down by gobs of tasks? Have things been “too busy”, “too hard”, or taken “too long”? We all get there…but how long do we stay there? Creating “standards” or a routine kit of parts is in many cases the goal with an office design layout and commercial interior design. Cost effective and what clients request? Yes! Repetitive and possibly rut inducing? YES!

A few years ago, a certain two year old (my niece Emme) responded to questions in the following way; “too busy” (translation: No) “too hard” (translation: NO!) or “too long” (translation: NOOOOOO!!!!!!!) This drove her parents crazy. (It’s funny how her responses even at that age parallel excuses we sometimes make as adults.) Her parents much preferred (and who wouldn’t) when she answered “SURE!”

On one particularly cranky day with no inspiration in sight, too much to do and people wanting much more than I thought I could give, I gave up. I gave up the rut, the routine, the “too busy”, “too hard”, and “too long.” I changed my response and in return, it’s changing me. I decided to roll “Emme-style” and say “SURE!”…to just about everything. “Can you help me with interactive whiteboards?” “SURE!” I replied, even though I knew nothing about them. “Do you have time to review some samples from a commercial flooring vendor?” “SURE!” “Can you speak to this group of students?” “SURE!” I was surprised by what was happening. Giving more was actually taking LESS time, making it possible to break from the routine that was dragging me down! There were also unexpected opportunities: Speaking to first through sixth graders at a school career day. The best question from that day: “Do you know Oprah?” I wish!! (Note to Oprah…PLEASE call me so next time I can answer “SURE!” to that question.) Hosting high school students at our main office for a “job shadow” day and seeing their jaws drop when we picked them up in our company van. Critiquing final projects for a college course, and my favorite, actually having more time to do the parts of my job I love….working with our designers.

Signing off for now…SURE!

So today I was truly inspired. One of the best speakers, talking from the heart and with passion, Faye Washington with the YWCA spoke of her efforts to get the new YWCA built.

On a “wing and a prayer” (probably lots of prayers, actually), Faye spoke of her efforts and her teams efforts to get this state of the art facility built not too far from Staples Center. Faced with countless roadblocks and hurdles, but with an unnerving passion and spirit, Faye has truly moved some serious mountains. From the moment she said good morning to the assembled room of Central City Association of Los Angeles members, she had made her way into my heart. She was incredibly infectious that there is no doubt I will be helping her at some point.

Perhaps there is an element of her project that will require custom office furniture, beds or tables such as what Tangram Studio provided for the Midnight Mission, the lounge areas that Tangram can support and service or even commercial flooring from our Flooring Team.  But if not, Faye will still have made a lasting impression on me as well as the other CCA members. Her candor and passion truly inspired me this morning.

Our blogmaster (for lack of a better term) gently reminded me that I’ve been remiss in writing recently and since he is somewhat giddy having just received his new iPad, I decided to humor him with the hope he would get me one too in exchange for this post.

Seriously though…his reminder did cause me to reflect: “What have I been doing?”  A recent and unique experience follows.

In the world of office space design “emergencies” happen with some regularity. In most cases, these are urgent situations where someone is surprised on a Thursday afternoon with a new hire starting the following Monday. While challenging and inconvenient, it is frequently part of the job…and it feels great when we can devise a solution!!

The Monday after Easter, we received a call from a client which could be classified as a real furniture emergency…but…you be the judge. It seems the tenant who occupied the space above our client’s completed some plumbing repairs over the weekend. The lines were clogged and needed to be streamlined. The plumbers went about their business and in clearing the lines, they broke through the pipes causing raw sewage to pour into the plenum space and spill into the suite below…on the furniture. Raw sewage (aside from being “narsty” to the Nth degree) is classified as “black water” in the plumbing biz and anything it touches must be destroyed (even using refurbished office furniture isn't allowed)…because in coming into contact with the raw sewage, the objects it touches are “narsty” too! Eeeeewwwww! So sadly, the office furnishings (and personal contents) all have to be destroyed, the commercial flooring removed and bacterial levels monitored (with what I am calling a “germ-o-meter”).  Now picture this poor person receiving a call on Easter (or one of the last days of Passover) that what amounts to “doodie” has invaded her facility…you’d postpone your blog a few days to help her too…right?

Unless you have been living under that proverbial rock, you have no doubt heard some, if not all of the uproar about Apple's latest gadget -- iPad -- and how it is set to be this revolutionary device that, "heralds a new era of computing."  Although I was immediately enamored with the new device, I was somehow able to resist the temptation to be one of the first 300,000+ people reported to have purchased it on Day 1.

But my choice to not purchase one for my personal use should not infer that I would not benefit from having one.  In fact, I believe that the iPad could truly be of benefit to me in my professional role.  So naturally, I asked the question, "How do I get my boss to buy me one?" I knew I would need some serious justification if I was even going to think of asking for one, so I decided to put that justification in the form of a letter.  Here is my best attempt...

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Dear Boss,

I am writing to officially request the purchase of an Apple iPad for my daily use here at Tangram Interiors.  I truly believe this request will directly benefit the company through increased production and efficiency of my work.

As the Director of Interactive Media & eBusiness, almost all of my work is done on the internet. In any given day, I could be updating our Twitter account with informative links to articles on commercial interior design websites or posting pictures from our latest installation of office furnishings to our  Facebook fanpage.  Or I might find myself filming, editing and uploading a video to YouTube or as I did this morning, helping one of our employees update their profiles on LinkedIn to enhance their networking ability within the industry.  I also spend time editing and submitting posts from our internal bloggers here on the Inspired blog.  I often create and upload new content to our many websites, including my most recent work in project managing the redesign of the Tangram Studio site. A large portion of my time is spent managing our CRM (Salesforce.com - also web-based), like creating reports to track upcoming opportunities for commercial flooring or refurbished office furniture installations.  And while all of that is happening, I am often creating or editing our eBusiness web portals for our many customers so that they can manage their facilites and procure furniture assets easier.

So what does all of that have to do with the iPad?  Well, no one could explain it better than Apple themselves.  But if that wasn't enough, there are also the countless custom applications built specifically for iPad, like TweetDeck for Twitter and a new custom interface for Salesforce.com - applications aimed at increasing productivity.  And what about being able to support our internal users via the Tangram IT Help Desk?  No worries - the iPad has a built-in VPN client and free Remote Desktop applications that would allow me to connect to any computer or server on the network from wherever I am.

All in all, there is no better device available suited to help me be successful in what I do!

Thanks for your consideration,
Tim

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So, what do you think?  Think it will work?  Would you buy me one?  No, seriously...would you?  Because he might not, and I still want one! ;)

So, I was having this dialogue with my wife the other night as we were watching What Would Brian Boitano Make? on Food Network over dinner.  What a scream.  Love the energy.  Anyway, she is a psychologist, and we razz each other back and forth about the buzzwords in our respective professions.  So when I told her that the South Park song is all about being planful, she was in my face about it being a made-up word, and a pretentious one at that.

I think that it is safe to say that anyone that works in the commercial interior design industry or has any involvement in dealing with office furnishings would agree it is easy to become overwhelmed with the countless products to choose from when creating an office space design.

From the floor to the ceiling, it could be the thousands of patterns and colors made available by the commercial flooring vendors to the more technical components of healthcare environments that could put any experienced professional into a tail spin.

But every once in a while a product comes along that is not only simple to specify, but more importantly simple to use - especially when that product is integrated with technology.  Such is the case with media:scape by Steelcase.  A seamless integration of furniture and technology, this product allows a user to quickly and easily "walk up and connect" their laptop to a table which is attached to as many as four screens.  No longer does a single person have to control the projector and sharing of information - now data can be shared from multiple sources, by multiple people - all at the same time!

Obviously, since Tangram Interiors is a Steelcase dealer and office interiors solutions provider we have access to use their full line of products - which is evident upon visiting any of our four showrooms in Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Fernando Valley.  We have already installed two standing-height media:scape stations in our Santa Fe Springs showroom, one lounge-height station in Santa Ana and have multiple others that we are using in a "test drive" program where we deliver it to our customers' own offices so that they can kick the tires and use it for a week or so.

I must say that media:scape has definitely created an unusual buzz in the office, unlike any other I have witnessed in my tenure here.  The stations rarely go unused; from impromptu meetings to review documents between two individuals, to full conferencing sessions between our two showrooms using our WebEx meeting center for real-time document sharing as well as our latest addition of a video conferencing solution from LifeSize (of which Tangram is now an authorized dealer!) to allow for more personal interaction.

I may be a bit partial since I love technology, but I truly think that the office design layout and the way in which people interact within it is about to dramatically change thanks to technology solutions like media:scape.

If you have any thoughts on the use of technology in the workplace or if you would like more information on how we have integrated it in our offices, I would love to hear from you in the comments below!