Commercial Interiors Projects

1
Commercial Interiors Projects
In design practice there is a substantial
distinction between residential design and
commercial design. Commercial design typically
involves complicated physical, financial, and
legal relationships. The base building
(architectural shell) is today often quite
separate from the interior infill. Partition
systems, office work stations that are
demountable, open work space all make interior
environments independent from the enclosing
building envelope
2

• Up until the 1950's adapting office spaces to
  meet the needs of a tenant involved little more
  than putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls
  of existing offices.
• Today, office buildings are designed to be able
  to accommodate changing needs of different
  tenants.

3

• A base building condition today includes
  sophisticated raised flooring systems that allow
  for hvac, electrical, plumbing, and data cabling
  to be located out of sight, beneath the finished
  floor surface.
• Movable and demountable partition systems often
  take the place of gypsum board walls.

4

• The separation of a 'base building' from the
  'infill', or 'tenant upfit' is related to a
  series of economic and technological events.
• The industrial revolution, of the early to mid
  1800's, prompted the emergence of the service
  industry. By the late 1840's less than a 1/4 of
  the world's population was dependent on
  agriculture as a means to make a living.

5

• The service sector, of law, accounting, banking,
  and other business functions, grew in proportion
  to the changes brought on by industrial
  manufacturing.
• Office space began to fill existing buildings.
• One of the first dramatic high rise buildings was
  the Home Insurance Building.

6
William LeBaron Jenney Home Insurance Building
1883-1885 Chicago, Illinois
The development of high rise construction, and
especially the steel frame, really made
commercial interior space possible. William
LeBaron Jenney's Home Insurance Building of 1883
was an early example of the potential of large
scale open commercial space
7
The Rookery, Chicago, IL  (1886), John Wellborn
Root
8

• By the mid 1930's the Johnson Wax building,
  designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, , included
  specially designed furniture.
• The desk and chair set, manufactured by
  Steelcase, was an integral part of the interior
  design and supported the workers' tasks.

9
Frank Lloyd Wright Johnson Wax building,
Racine, Wisconsin, 1947
10
The Herman Miller Company In 1942 Herman
Miller introduced its first furniture product for
the modern office, a component system called the
Executive Office Group, designed by Gilbert
Rohde.
11

• Gilbert Rohde   It was 1930, and Gilbert Rohde
  had a problem He was full of fresh new ideas
  about furniture design but he couldn't convince
  any of the traditional manufacturers to take them
  on. Then he met D. J. DePree. DePree also had a
  problem His company, Herman Miller, needed a
  major shot in the arm if it was going to survive.
  Rohde told DePree that his new ideas made sense
  for the changing times and for the growing number
  of people who were living in apartments and
  smaller houses. "This calls for a different kind
  of furniture," he said.

12
Could Rohde design such furniture, DePree asked?
Yes. Would he design such furniture for Herman
Miller? Yes. A deal was struck, and thus began
a relationship that would lead Herman Miller into
an exciting and challenging new era. "You're not
making furniture anymore," Rohde told DePree.
"You're providing a way of life."
Disdaining ornamentation that often covered up
shoddy workmanship, Rohde espoused clean, simple,
honest designs. To accommodate smaller living
spaces, he created furniture with dual purposes
a card table that turned into a dining table, a
settee that folded back into a bed, tables
("rotorettes") that housed books and other items
on rotating shelves. He loved this idea of
interchangeability, demonstrated most notably in
his Living-Dining Group--individual pieces that
could go in either place and a radical departure
from the standard living or dining room "suites"
purchased at the time. And with the introduction
of Rohde's Executive Office Group, the company
entered the office furniture market.
13
Chronology of Herman Miller Company 1942The
Executive Office Group, designed by Gilbert
Rohde, signals Herman Miller's entry into the
office-furniture market. Modular and versatile,
EOG is a precursor of systems furniture.Herman
Miller's Los Angeles showroom opens.Charles and
Ray Eames are commissioned by the Navy to develop
lightweight, molded plywood leg
splints.1944Gilbert Rohde dies, De Pree
begins searching for a new design
leader.1945After seeing an article in Life
magazine on George Nelson and his Storagewall
design, D.J. De Pree hires him to serve as the
company's first design director.
14
1946The Nelson Office designs the stylized "m"
logo and introduces a new corporate image for
Herman Miller.New York's Museum of Modern Art
installs a small exhibition called "New Furniture
Designed by Charles Eames"--the museum's first
one-man furniture show.Nelson and De Pree
recruit Charles and Ray Eames into the Herman
Miller fold.The Nelson platform bench is
introduced.The Eames molded plywood chair,
molded plywood lounge chair, molded plywood
folding screen, and molded plywood coffee table
are introduced. 1947Herman Miller gains
exclusive market and distribution rights to the
Eameses' award-winning molded plywood products.
These rights are acquired from the Evans Products
Company of Grand Haven, Michigan, which retains
production rights.
15
1948Herman Miller publishes and sells a bound,
hardcover product catalog, written by George
Nelson and designed by the Nelson Office. The
catalog, which articulates Herman Miller's
philosophy and principles about business and
design, will become a collector's item.Herman
Miller introduces a glass-topped coffee table
designed by Isamu Noguchi.1949Molded plywood
manufacturing moves from the Grand Haven,
Michigan, manufacturing site of Evans Products to
a Herman Miller manufacturing facility in
Zeeland. Another manufacturing plant, which later
becomes the Eames Studio, opens in Venice,
California.
16
Charles Eames (1907-78) and Ray Eames (1912-88)
gave shape to Americas twentieth century.
Their lives and work represented the nations
defining social movements the West Coasts
coming-of-age, the economys shift from making
goods to the producing information, and the
global expansion of American culture. .
17
The Eameses embraced the eras visionary concept
of modern design as an agent of social change,
elevating it to a national agenda. Their
evolution from furniture designers to cultural
ambassadors demonstrated their boundless talents
and the overlap of their interests with those of
their country. In a rare era of shared
objectives, the Eameses partnered with the
federal government and the countrys top
businesses to lead the charge to modernize
postwar America
18
(No Transcript)
19

• With a grand sense of adventure, Charles and Ray
  Eames turned their curiosity and boundless
  enthusiasm into creations that established them
  as a truly great husband-and-wife design team.
• Their unique synergy led to a whole new look in
  furniture. Lean and modern. Playful and
  functional. Sleek, sophisticated, and beautifully
  simple. That was and is the 'Eames look.'

20

• That look and their relationship with Herman
  Miller started with molded plywood chairs in the
  late 1940s and includes the world-renowned Eames
  lounge chair, now in the permanent collection of
  the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

21

• Charles and Ray achieved their monumental success
  by approaching each project the same way Does it
  interest and intrigue us? Can we make it better?
  Will we have 'serious fun' doing it?

22

• They loved their work, which was a combination of
  art and science, design and architecture, process
  and product, style and function. 'The details are
  not details,' said Charles. 'They make the
  product.'

23

• A problem-solver who encouraged experimentation
  among his staff, Charles once said his dream was
  'to have people working on useless projects.
  These have the germ of new concepts.'

24

• Their own concepts evolved over time, not
  overnight. As Charles noted about the development
  of the Molded Plywood Chairs, 'Yes, it was a
  flash of inspiration,' he said, 'a kind of
  30-year flash.'

25

• With these two, one thing always seemed to lead
  to another. Their revolutionary work in molded
  plywood led to their breakthrough work in molded
  fibreglass seating. A magazine contest led to
  their highly innovative 'Case Study' house.

26

• Their love of photography led to film making,
  including a huge seven-screen presentation at the
  Moscow World's Fair in 1959, in a dome designed
  by their friend and colleague, Buckminster Fuller.

27

• Graphic design led to showroom design, toy
  collecting to toy inventing. And a wooden plank
  contraption, rigged up by their friend, director
  Billy Wilder for taking naps, led to their
  acclaimed chaise design.

28

• A design critic once said that this extraordinary
  couple 'just wanted to make the world a better
  place.' That they did. They also made it a lot
  more interesting.

29
Molded plywood chairs designed by Charles and
Ray Eames, manufactured by Herman Miller
Molded plywood screen designed by Charles and
Ray Eames, manufactured by Herman Miller
30
Cast aluminum and leather chairs, designed by
Charles and Ray Eames, manufactured by Herman
Miller.
31
The Eames lounge chair, manufactured by Herman
Miller
Model 670 was the first design for the luxury end
of the market by Charles and Ray Eames. Designed
in 1956 it retailed for 634 in 1957. The Lounge
chair is unashamedly masculine, exuding a sense
of executive power and comfort through its
generous proportions and use of high-quality
materials. At first glance, the chair looks much
more complex than other pieces by Eames, but it
is actually built according to the same principle
as their simple plywood chairs. Three moulded
plywood elements joined together by metal
components and, with a lower frame, form the
basic structure.
32
The Merchandise Mart, completed in 1931, catered
exclusively to the wholesale trade. The largest
building in the world at the time of its
completion, the Mart continues to host the
NEOCON trade show annually.
33
Open plan office furniture, or systems furniture
as it is called today, defines and separates
work spaces without the use of constructed
partitions. Today it is estimated that more
than 30 of U.S. businesses use systems
Furniture. The practice of commercial interior
design today is a specialty, requiring
knowledge, skill, and an ability to bring large
and small scale architectural components
together into a smoothly functioning environment.

34
With the decline in new construction and the
dwindling availability of prime urban real
estate, tenant work will continue to be a
primary focus for many design practices.
35
Base Building and Tenant Improvements The
commercial office building shell and core, which
include essential services, such as the HVAC
system, elevators, and toilet rooms, is commonly
referred to as the 'base building'. Tenant
improvements are those materials and
constructions that form the infill, responding
to the tenant's needs, which are not part of the
base building. The base building standard, or
building standard, is a package of typical tenant
improvements provided by, and sometimes required
of, the landlord. By standardizing building
components like suite entry doors, suite
signage, lighting fixtures, and window
treatments, the landlord can maintain coherence
in design, and consistency in maintenance
routines throughout the building. Usually there
is a tenant improvement allowance to cover
standard items that will be installed at no cost
to the tenant. The quantity of tenant
improvements is usually described per square
foot of rentable space.
36
For example, 1 telephone jack every 125 square
feet of leased space, 1 door every 300 square
feet of leased space, et cetera. Sometimes the
allowance is stated as a certain amount of money
to be allocated per square foot of leased space.

A lease is an agreement between the property
owner and the tenant. There are standard
improvements that landlords provide to tenants as
part of the rental rate. The document that
describes these improvements to the rented space
is the work letter (see page 7 in "Specifying
Interiors") which is attached to, and becomes
part of the lease.
37
Measuring Commercial Space There are about a
dozen different methods of measuring commercial
office space in current use. All methods make
similar distinctions between gross area, usable
area, and rentable area, but they differ in how
these areas are calculated. The building gross
area, defined as the "construction area" by the
Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA),
is the floor area within the exterior face of the
building including the thickness of the exterior
wall. It is the total constructed space. This
measurement is used in evaluating building
efficiency, and in comparing construction costs
between projects. The rentable area is usually
defined as the interior floor area excluding
vertical penetrations (stairs, duct chases,
elevator shafts, et cetera). This measurement
is often used to determine the income producing
capability of a building. The usable area is
the floor area that is inhabitable by the tenant.
This measurement is used in planning and
designing the space.