Office Interiors Solutions

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!

So it's been awhile since my last post in which I was listing the benefits of the Apple iPad and its potential to positively affect my daily routine here at Tangram Interiors.  It's been so long in fact that the buzz about Apple's latest product isn't even about the iPad anymore thanks to the recent release of the iPhone 4.

Since my efforts to be an "early adopter" like Phil from Modern Family (arguably the best show on television) were successful (yes, I now have my very own iPad) I thought I would share with you one of the most recent FREE Apps that I downloaded.

Now, office furnishings and office space design might not be the first thing you thought of, but that is exactly what Steelcase had in mind when they developed Roam, which provides you with an interactive tour of the Chicago WorkLife Center located in the iconic Merchandise Mart, recently renovated for NeoCon 2010.

For every solution displayed in the showroom, Roam gives you an interactive floorplan complete with beautiful high-resolution photos (that can be saved or shared via Facebook) along with 3D visualizations, footprints and measurements, the design intent that led to the application, the types of work the solution supports, the products that comprise each solution, and details about the overall showroom design.  While touring through the showroom, our local Tangram and Steelcase team had access to an iPad loaded with Roam that enabled them to enhance our guests' experience and provide further insight to the newest office interiors solutions.

   

If you were unable to visit us at NeoCon in Chicago this year, feel free to connect with us so we can share our recap presentation of all of the newest products and solutions and give you the virtual tour on the iPad!

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.

Main Entry: door

Pronunciation: ˈdȯr
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English dure, dor, from Old English duru door & dor gate; akin to Old High German turi door, Latin fores, Greek thyra
Date: before 12th century

1: a usually swinging or sliding barrier by which an entry is closed and opened;
also: a similar part of a piece of furniture
2: DOORWAY
3: a means of access or participation : OPPORTUNITY [opens new doors] [door to success]
— door·less -ləs adjective
— at one's door : as a charge against one as being responsible [laid the blame at our door]



Ironically when I looked up "door" in the Webster Dictionary one of the definitions was an opportunity. Which is a good way to look at our most recent custom office furniture project, an opportunity to create something new. A client came to us with the typical request for an 8' x 8' workstation. The usual challenges were inherent in the request: two monitors, shelf, cockpit surface, 60" high panels. Then came a request for a door. Sure it seems easy enough. Think of how many successful doors we pass through every day, the doors to our homes, office, the coffee shop, the restaurant, every time we use the bathroom there are multiple doors. Armed with the confidence from the door we had create for SCAN Health Plan we said, "Yes! We can create a door."

So we researched every sliding door in Southern California and Northern Maine (Jeremy's domain). The mountain to climb got a lot steeper when our client asked for no upper track, or lower track on the ground to guide the door, and it had to be smooth and refined feeling. How do we create a door in four weeks with off the shelf parts without a track system that is smooth and refined. We surmised that the success would all be in the tolerances and the wheels or bearings used in the doors.

We set out on an exhaustive search for wheels/bearings. Jeremy and Brad concocted a detailed set of Z brackets and U channels to allow the door to slide and have the structure & rigidity required so that the door wouldn’t roll off into the aisle way. Again back to the wheels or bearings. Jeremy found a pair of his wife's roller blades in the garage and took them apart to see if the wheels would work. Low and behold the wheels were smooth and perfect with and amazing bearing. Where do we find 300 roller blade wheels? On his way back from lunch one day Brad stopped in Wal-Mart to looks for roller blades wheels for our mock up - $2.25 later he was on his way with two new beautiful wheels with that perfect bearing. These became the bottom off the door. In the end we sourced the wheels from an inline skate shop just north of the San Fernando Valley; we cleaned out their stock.

The last item to complete were the vertical interior wheels. They couldn’t exceed .875" in diameter or .25" in height to work with the clearance required. Back to the internet. Brad came across a shower door replacement company. Shower doors roll on very small nylon wheels with a metal hub - perfect!

With wheels in hand, completed engineering drawings, all tolerance and brackets worked out to within 1/16" and our vendor fabricated the prototype. Reckoning day came...the door was to be assembled and tested. Will it work? Did we consider all the tolerances? Will it be strong? Will it stay in line? Will it be smooth? Heck will it even go together? Low and behold it went together and worked! The door slid beautifully, the tolerance were spot on, the unit could self level. We had done it! Except for the horrible clicking/clanking sound of the wheels!!! Ahh the agony!!! Where was the noise coming from? The wheels rubbing? Were the Z brackets acting as a reverberation chamber? How do we solve it? We narrowed it down to the nylon shower wheels. After days of searching for new wheels, sound dampening/absorbing materials we settled on a possible combination of felt, and Velcro to smooth the roll of the wheel and deaden the sounds.  Back to the metal fabricators to re-set up the door. After hours of rolling, listening, removing the door and installing additional sound dampening solutions without success, Marko who works in the shop at our local metal vendor (we always try to create locally manufactured office furniture) came in with an O ring for faucets. We installed these under our shower wheels. It was blissful silence…the door rolled smooth and quiet.

We created a door - an opportunity - fabricated with sport equipment, bathroom hardware, a few O rings and sheet metal.

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!

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...

I just got back to the Studio from an afternoon of prototyping felt tack panels at our upholsterer. For one of our current custom office furniture projects, the architect has a desire to create interior tack panels with horizontal stripes.

The inspiration comes from a British carpet manufacturer. They offer a line of thick, nubby, horizontal-striped carpet. It's really quite beautiful.

So how do we replicate a similar feel within the custom workstations? The architect suggested wicking felt, stacked horizontally. We attempted to sew 1/2" diameter wicking felt tubes to a felt backer. It was a bit like trying to squeeze a bubble. Needless to say, we had to go in an alternate direction.

However, felt has a great warm textural feel. We love felt! It's a "green" material (sustainable office furniture is something that we always try to incorporate into our projects) that has this fantastic organic/industrial/warm feeling all in one. Who would have thought all of that would be possible in one material? So I stopped by our felt vendor in Placentia (locally manufactured office furniture is another key to Studio projects) to obtain several sheets of felt.

Now, how could we take plain, flat felt sheets and begin to fold and sew them to create depth and pattern? There are so many options and possibilities when it comes to sewing: the manipulation of the felt sheets, the stitching, layering of strips - all interesting and full of possibilities.

We arrived at a possible solution. Gustavo, the factory manager, refurbishes old vintage cars. He suggested we treat the felt panels like vintage car seats - curved, detailed stitching, piping - picture a 1959 Impala or a 1965 Falcon. We landed on a 3/4" diameter piping strip stacked horizontally with a felt cover. Gustavo and I set out to the sewing machines to see if this would work. By horizontally stacking the piping and stitching it between two layers of felt I think we have a close facsimile to the British carpet!




Do you have a project that you are trying to incorporate something unique into? Let TangramStudio know - we would love to co-create something with you for your office design layout!