Office Interiors Los Angeles

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. 

One of our industrial designers for Studio, the custom office furniture division at Tangram Interiors, is visiting with us for the week. For his first day with us, we arranged to visit some local Los Angeles based installations. What a pleasure it is when you are in the company of greatness, and watching the Studio Team review their work at LMU, UMPG, Light Manufacturing, KPCC and Dreamworks was totally awesome.
As you can see by the photos, the beauty is in the details. The Studio Team led by Charlotte Wiederholt with great assists from Jeremy Knapp and Ron Rousell, when talking design, is the absolute best. Listening to the feedback from end users and designers about their work is second to none.
Seeing the design team on their hands and knees inspecting all of the concealed fasteners used for the Library Carrols at LMU and seeing Jeremy mentor Brad and Marlin about the qualities of felt at the KPCC installation and watching Charlotte show the benefits of a Cam Lock versus a Mod-Z connection at Dreamworks was truly outstanding. Seeing the curved panels installed at UMPG was also a site to behold. Working closely with Mozu, Studio designed a curved panel that was “breathtaking” to see installed.

We ended our day at Flemings at LA Live and it is obvious that Tangram Studio not only provides excellent and pristine design and finished products, but the team also knows how to enjoy themselves. In addition to working hard, Studio knows how to play hard. Working with Tangram Studio is like...not working at all.

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!

As an active member of Upward Gravity, I attended Community Day at Environmental Charter High School and spent a couple of hours touring their campus and learning about what and how they learn.  I was truly inspired!

The dedication the students have to the environment and education is nothing less than progressive; it was truly amazing!  There were debates on technology (on whether it is bad for the environment), presentations on topics such as quality of life, what progress means, how to make the American Dream sustainable and senior theses on a newscast about our individual impact on the environment.  Some of the students have even given presentations to community leaders in Los Angeles about what needs to be done locally to make a difference.

During my visit, I met many supporters of ECHS, one of which was Jayni Chase, founder of The Center for Environmental Education (and wife of actor Chevy Chase).  The CEE was started in 1988 "acting on the belief that positive environmental change must begin with the education of our children."  Jayni's commitment and dedication to this belief is immediately evident.  I also had the pleasure of meeting Sara Laimon, Director of the Green Ambassadors, the outreach program of ECHS that, "empowers youth to be agents of change in their communities and world."  ECHS is making strides that ranked them in the top 3% of public high schools by U.S. News & World Report and have earned them an EPA Environmental Award.

Upward Gravity and ECHS have started a partnership which will enable student involvement in the creation of solutions to environmental and sustainable challenges through design competitions.  We have already stimulated prompt involvement with the Art and Algebra teachers by offering them materials and supplies (provided by TangramStudio) to engage the tie between these subjects and their relation to commercial interior design, office furnishings and their effects on the environment.

ECHS is the school of the future...