Highlights for the company's 20,000 square-foot showroom include new storage furniture, high performance healthcare seating, and building infrastructure technologies
Herman Miller is returning to the NeoCon World's Trade Fair at Chicago's Merchandise Mart with a remarkable breadth of solutions for the workplace, healthcare, and facility management. The company's third floor showroom will highlight responsive solutions and responsible corporate positions during the office furniture industry's largest exhibition in North America, June 9-11, 2008.
Click here to access the Herman Miller NeoCon08 website.
"It's about human connections," says Len Pilon, who oversees Herman Miller's facilities and customer experience. "Our charge is to show how we respond to our customers, and how we do it responsibly."
This year, the company will provide its customers with new and notable choices that reinforce its NeoCon theme:
A Fresh Approach to Filing and Storage
Teneo storage furniture is a charismatic set of products that offer variety and visual harmony to the workplace. Designed to provide and maintain a consistent aesthetic within open work environments, it creates a unified, flexible space. Teneo is a result of the collaboration between Herman Miller and designers Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck of the New York-based design firm Birsel + Seck. Because storage is one of the largest factors in workplace satisfaction, Birsel and Seck sought to design one product solution that could meet a wide range of storage needs, including those of the individual, group, and workplace community.
Tu is a fresh approach to products formerly under the company's Quadrant brand. The new identity brings with it new products and pull style changes, as well as enhanced aesthetics and functionality.
A new, anodized aluminum pull, similar to the pull available on recently introduced Teneo products, also will be available with Tu and Meridian pedestal and lateral files. Additionally, Meridian and Tu will share other visually compatible pull styles.
Technology-based Solutions
Technology and sophisticated workplace knowledge are the backbone of Herman Miller's new Space Utilization Service, offering a new and highly reliable method for analyzing and maximizing facility usage. A working display in the showroom will demonstrate the patent-pending, wireless technology developed to accurately audit the needs of individual, group, and community spaces. Space Utilization Service studies are led by the Herman Miller Workplace Services team with costs comparable to traditional data collection methods and calculated according to the size and scope of a project.
The Convia platform is a smart building offering that includes flexible power infrastructure, seamless technology integration, and robust reporting capability. Convia creates more energy-efficient spaces and allows buildings to be instantly responsive to the changing needs and conditions of the occupants--all from a single, intuitive, user-friendly interface.
High Performance Textile
Quilty is a new textile designed according to the principles of biomimicry. The Eco Intelligent Polyester fabric is treated with GreenShield--an ecological, nanotechnology-based stain and water repellent from G3 Technology Innovations.
Healthcare Seating that Serves Patients and Caregivers
The Nala patient chair is a result of Herman Miller for Healthcare's 40 years of clinical product experience and ergonomics knowledge. It is the company's first high-performance patient seating solution, leveraging the sophisticated research, engineering, and design long associated with the company's ergonomic task chairs. Herman Miller for Healthcare and Boston-based Design Continuum collaborated to create a patient chair that utilizes leading edge ergonomic principles and provides unmatched seated comfort and support, with the durability and hygienic qualities required in the most demanding healing environments.
Newly acquired Herman Miller subsidiary Brandrud, Inc., located in Auburn, Washington, will display its new patient room seating solution called Cente in both its 11th floor showroom and in Herman Miller's third floor display. Responding to critical caregiver issues, Cente's design offers unique ingress and egress, enabling patient and caregiver to more easily and safely move from bed to chair and back again. Pressure management and air circulation also were important criteria for Cente. Its permeable seat and back suspension and 10-degree recline reduce spinal stress and disperse body pressure, while the three-degree forward tilt enables entering and exiting the chair with the use of a manual shift control mechanism.
The company also will unveil Andante Multiple Seating for waiting rooms and lounges. Andante Multiple Seating addresses the needs of patients who may require more space than typically allowed by traditional seating systems. Utilizing an engineered steel truss and industrial finger joints, it provides the structural capacity necessary to accommodate larger patient needs in a seamless fashion.
Freestanding Furniture for the Conference Room and Lounge Areas
Atlanta-based subsidiary Geiger International will highlight new products in the Herman Miller showroom and in its showroom located at 300 West Hubbard, including the Caucus Conferencing Suite, which includes enhancements for Caucus conference tables, such as media walls, credenzas, and lecterns. Other new Geiger product collections include an exciting variety of new side and console tables, as well as lounge seating, from designers Eric Chan and Marc Goetz.
Design with the Environment in Mind
Herman Miller's Environmental Affairs team also will be present to discuss with customers the company's unmatched environmental records and accomplishments achieved during the most recent fiscal year. These include the use of renewable energy sources to meet over 60% of the company's needs; achieving an approximate 50% carbon neutral operational footprint; and multiple new products that are both Cradle to Cradle and GreenGuard certified.
Noted Len Pilon, "The new and existing products and capabilities exhibited in the Herman Miller showroom all reflect a thoughtful response to a customer need. Paying close attention to those needs, in the context of our overarching commitment to sustainability, enables us to shape responsible solutions for an ever greater range of working, healing, and learning environments."
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