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
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
William LeBaron Jenney
Home Insurance Building 18831885
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
The Rookery, Chicago,
IL (1886), John Wellborn Root
• 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.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Johnson Wax
building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1947
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.
• 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.
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.
Chronology of Herman Miller Company
1942
The 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.
1944
Gilbert Rohde dies, De Pree begins searching for a new design leader.
1945
After 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.
1946
The 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.
1947
Herman 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.
1948
Herman 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.
1949
Molded 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.
Charles Eames (1907-78) and Ray Eames (1912-88)
gave shape to America’s twentieth century.
Their lives and work represented the nation’s defining
social movements:
the West Coast’s coming-of-age, the economy’s shift from
making goods to the producing information, and the global
expansion of American culture.
.
The Eameses embraced the era’s 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 country’s
top businesses to lead the charge to modernize postwar
America
• 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.'
• 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.
• 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?
• 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.'
• 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.'
• 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.'
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
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
Cast aluminum and leather chairs, designed by Charles
and Ray Eames, manufactured by Herman Miller.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.