Custom Educational Furniture

The following is a guest post from Paula Christiansen on her first day at NeoCon.  When she is not selling custom office furniture with our Tangram Studio team, she is educating the commercial interior design community on the architectural products offered by Tangram Interiors.

I was anxious and excited to start the day at 7am.  I didn’t know what to expect as about 100 DIRTTBags gathered at the Hotel 71 on Wacker St for the annual DIRTT training and meeting session.  It was a great day.

Mogens was inspiring, as always, in his typical "colorful" way, followed by announcements of what’s new with the latest software released, upcoming product releases, sales updates and forecasts for 2010-2011 and strategies.  The afternoon was a session called "Thrills with Drills."  We were divided up into about 10 teams of 10 people each and handed power tools (grunt grunt)!  We were given a set of plans with an office design layout and a pile of stick built DIRTT product and a stop watch and someone yelled “go”!  We built a small office about 4’ x 4’ square about 5’ high, including power.  Each wall was different and we had to read the plan elevations to exactly match where all the tiles went, etc.  What fun!  And guess who’s team won? Yep, you guessed it.  My team, along with David Morgan from Tangram!  We made our local DIRTT reps, Donna Shirely and Mike Taylor proud.

Following this exciting activity, we walked to the new DIRTT showroom at 325 N. Wells Street for a cocktail party reception and sneak peak of what the world will see at Neocon. Wow, is all I can say. You MUST get over to the showroom to see it and bring as many people with you as you can. It is amazing.  Photos from my fabulous day and the showroom are on Facebook.

Last night was the Calibre Awards. We had a group of 15 that included end users, designers and Tangram Staff in attendance to root on the Tangram Team that was up for 6 total awards. Many hours later, we received…not one award. But judging by the looks on the faces of the 15 of us and the energy we brought into the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel, there is no doubt that we in fact did win.

William H. Hannon Library
nominated by: AECOM
In no particular order, our first disappointment was not winning for the custom educational furniture solutions that Tangram Studio provided for the William H. Hannon Library at LMU. This was a project we did with AECOM and as library’s go, this is no doubt the finest library in North America. The custom solutions that Tangram Studio in conjunction with AECOM came up with were a 1st place finish by my standards. 



Miller Children's Hospital
nominated by: Taylor Architects
We also fell short with the work we did with Taylor for Miller Children’s Hospital. In addition to the Steelcase furniture we provided, we also supplied the flooring throughout the hospital. This too was a 1st Place finish if I had a vote. The workmanship we provided was outstanding and as healthcare environments go, this facility is warm and friendly and is not the kind of healing facility I remember as a kid. It’s a beautiful installation. 



SCAN Health Plan
nominated by: The Urquiza Group, Inc.
One of the biggest disappointments was not being recognized for the work Tangram and Tangram Studio provided for the Scan Health Plan project. This is one of the first projects in which Tangram Studio added custom office furniture elements to standard Steelcase offerings so as to fulfill the design intent of the Urquiza Group. Manuel Urquiza had a vision for the space that only the industrial designers from Tangram Studio could have made a reality. This too was an awesome installation and given the competition we had for this award, then yes, we should have won in this category as well.


Beachbody
nominated by: Wolcott Architecture | Interiors 
The Beachbody project we worked on with Wolcott Architecture Interiors provided a space that in addition to having a “tight budget,” Tangram Studio provided custom solutions that was as tailored to the space as the pb90x video that Beachbody produces is for getting yourself into great physical shape. If the criteria for this category were minimal budget without sacrificing fit and finish, this too should have been a 1st place winner. 




The National Typewriter Company
nominated by: Shimoda Design Group
When our team of industrial designers from Tangram Studio walked the completed installation at The National Typewriter Company, the comments from our team confirmed the genius that is Shimoda Design. The custom office furniture acted as the perfect back drop to Shimoda’s architectural elements. By all accounts, this too was a 1st place finisher. It’s just that the judges did not agree with my own biased opinion.




HLW
nominated by: HLW International LLP
Working with an almost nonexistent budget, the Tangram Studio team was charged with taking HLW’s existing furniture and adding custom elements so that when HLW moved into its new offices, the existing furniture now had the appearance of having been designed for the new space. The marriage of custom elements modified to fit around and onto beams and existing structures was a well thought out office space design challenge. And a challenge that should have been rewarded with a 1st Place Finish, just not at this year’s Calibre Awards. 


I was reminded throughout the evening that all though we did not win any awards at this year’s Calibre Awards that the best in class and always First Place Finish by my account are the men and women that I get to work with daily. Their efforts are always great; their attitudes are always uplifting and collectively, it’s the best group of folks I’ve ever worked with. It’s a privilege that I get to work with them daily. As my mom would tell me when I was playing baseball in high school and after I personally had a bad game, she was always there to say “you are still number one!” And now I get to say to my team that although we did not win, we are still…number one!