Vintage and contemporary designs merge in this eclectic New York City home studio. Photo: Nick Keppol

Architecture and design firm Gensler’s downtown Chicago office in the Louis Sullivan Building stays true to the look and style of the iconic architect’s work. An open work plan and light, agile seating encourages flexibility and collaboration. Photo: Gensler

A view of London from the contemporary digs of Actis, made more comfortable thanks to the Aeron Chair. Photo: Gensler

A pair of purple Eames lounge chairs and a Central Park view from the Manhattan penthouse of architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams. Photo: Bryan Derballa

The New York skyline from a corner conference room of the law firm Brown Rudnick. Photo: Gensler

Tired of your desk? At Autodesk you can pull up a SAYL Chair and spend some time working in a community lounge. Photo: Gensler

A classic Herman Miller coffee table and lounge chair make an appearance in this Paris home, once a convent in the heart of the city. Photo: Louis Desrosier

Matching is overrated; an Eames chair with a wood dowel base sits among an artful selection of several designs. Photo: Amy Azzarito

A beautifully renovated home nestled in the wooded hills of Marin County, California, complete with an Eames Lounge and Ottoman. Photo: Bruce Damonte

Pull up an Eames Molded Plastic Chair in this modern dining area. Photo: cargocollective.com

Eames chairs in the cool kitchenette of Pocket Gems, a mobile game developer. Photo: Bruce Damonte

Check out Sighted 2012 for more inspiring photos.

Heights don’t bother photographer Alexander Remnev, who routinely climbs tall buildings without a harness to snap dizzying photos like this one. Photo: Alexander Remnev

A young Buddhist monk demonstrates his agility in Hunan Province, China. Photo: Steve McCurry

The stacked ice bubbles of Abraham Lake in Alberta, Canada, are a rare phenomenon caused by methane gas naturally released by the lake’s plant life. Photo: Chip Phillips

The world’s smallest deer, the pudu, is just 16 inches tall and weighs 20 pounds. This baby, only one month old, is even smaller. Photo: Jose Luis Saavedra

This runaway tent was able to take flight thanks to some creative photography and a bit of digital manipulation. Photo: Laurent Chehere

Only on close inspection does this swirling, iridescent sphere reveal itself to be an ordinary soap bubble. Photo: Jason Tozer

Every morning, the giraffes of this Kenyan estate help themselves to a table of breakfast treats. Photo: The Safari Collection

The last, foggy remains of night cling to the trees high up in the Polish mountains. Photo: Boguslaw Strempel

Check out Eye Delight-2011 and Eye Delight-2012 for more interesting images.

Designer Yves Bèhar isn’t kidding when he says, “Every molecule in the SAYL chair had to work harder.” To achieve Bèhar’s vision of an eco-dematerialized design, every piece of SAYL was examined, sculpted, and hollowed out to use the least amount of material without compromising strength. Was it successful? Well, SAYL survived having a 300-pound sack dropped on it—multiple times.

The Herman Miller Test Lab, where SAYL was put through its paces, is infamous among our designers. Some have even dubbed it “the place where designs go to die.” Weights, pulleys, and pistons test every design to the brink of failure—and beyond—to ensure they meet the requirements of our standard 12-year warranty.

Engineers weren’t sure SAYL would make it. It did, thanks to some hard work making every piece work harder.

Transparency, executive visibility, and timely communication during major organizational changes can help employees understand high-level strategy and embrace change. The Campbell’s Soup Company exemplified these ideas during a recent headquarters renovation, and the results were as delicious as their soup.

A strong desire to provide an invigorating, supportive workplace for employees lead Campbell’s to create a LEED-NC Silver Employee Center packed with people-pleasing features, including a credit union, fitness center, company store, café, training center, and pilot workplace that would act as a test lab to inform future space planning.

Campbell’s, with help from Herman Miller, kept employees informed during the renovation process through information sessions, executive-lead panel discussions, and a café fair for employees to learn about the services provided in the new employee center. The result? The new employees center is a hit, and Campbell’s employees now embrace and even champion change instead of resisting it.

George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher, is a traveling exhibit exploring many facets of Nelson’s peculiar brand of genius, from furniture designs to urban planning to essays and criticism.

As Herman Miller Design Director from 1946-1972, Nelson believed a problem should never been viewed in isolation from the context in which it exists—the most important being people. He observed this to be “an approach that is more likely to create trends than follow them.” Nelson was right, and his philosophy drew the Eameses, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Girard to Herman Miller.

The exhibit runs until October at the Cranbrook Museum of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and marks one of just five stops in the U.S. for the extensive collection of artifacts and Nelson furniture.

“In spite of the whir of his mind and his life, Eames has a great inner quiet. A thin, tanned man, with brown gay eyes, deep laugh ruts, and a sudden stutter, he is a fascinating man. And clothes fascinate him, too. He likes to wear yellow-beiges, yellowish-greens, shirts of wonderful subtleties, roughly textured jackets, often with silver Navaho buttons which his wife, Ray, sews on a with special curved needle. These buttons are a partial clue to both the Eameses. They see the beauty in small oddities that others may miss. They are intensely practical. They work as partners, both designers, both filmmakers, both at ease in their life.”

“Charles, however, has a monkey mind that leaps about, exploring. He has great capacity to see, to think out problems as though no one had ever pondered them before…. Added to those qualities are his sense of structure and, finally, his wide keyboard, beyond the eighty-eight notes, of enthusiasms.”

Visit Eames Designs for the entire Vogue article.

Our bodies have a way of letting us know when they’re feeling uncomfortable. Stiff shoulders, sore neck, back pain, and eyestrain are all messages telling us that we’re are not working right.

Technology can be the culprit, forcing us into unhealthy postures. Laptops are wonderful; we’re untethered and free to work from anywhere. But that laptop screen is likely too low for everyday use. Before you know it, your neck is craning and your shoulders are hunched; you’ve become what Cynthia Roe Purvis, Ergonomics R&D Director at HP, calls the “Turtle.” You might even be sitting like a turtle right now and not even know it.

The key to comfort is listening to our bodies. Don’t stay in one posture for too long: sit, stand, and stretch, move around throughout the day. Combined with an ergonomic support tool like a Lapjack to lift your laptop’s screen to the proper height and an external keyboard, and in no time you’ll be feeling better. Your body will thank you for it.

Visit our Thrive Portfolio of ergonomic solutions to learn more.

Trained as an architect, but immensely multi-talented, Alexander Girard joined Herman Miller in 1952, serving as Director of Design for the Textile Division until 1973.

From his outpost in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Girard designed textiles, collections of wallpaper, decorative prints and wall hangings, an expansive group of furniture, and both decorative and useful objects. His passion for international folk art (or “toys” as he called them) led him around the globe, amassing a collection of roughly 106,000 pieces. Recognized for the diversity of his skills, Girard brought a unique vision to everything that he did.

Experience Girard’s way of seeing in Uncommon Vision, an ongoing exhibit of Girard’s textiles, graphics, furniture and interiors, along with personal artifacts. On display in our Chicago Showroom, located on the third floor of the Merchandise Mart, everyone is welcome to stop by and take a look.

Every year around this time in June, Herman Miller joins others in Chicago for NeoCon, a contract furniture tradeshow. Much like the major auto shows, this is when brands debut their new designs. This year we have some new treats on display. Explore the slideshow to learn more.

See what else we’re up to at NeoCon 2012, click here.

You can answer just one question, or all of them. It’s up to you. After you answer each question, a real-time infographic will show you what the larger community is saying.

Join in the conversation by taking the Community Pulse, click here.

Designing offices to be more compact is one way to counter an aversion to taking a walk at work. This ends up being a win-win for the business: People talk more (coming up with better ideas) and real estate costs go down.

Smaller offices and places for people to gather or bump into one another, as J. Michael Welton writes about in The New York Times, shared offices, compact conference rooms equipped with technology, quiet spots to get away from it all, choices in where to work given the task at hand, all these are elements in creating the right balance. That’s key. Intelligent remixing between individual offices and group and community areas, as opposed to simply shedding real estate, is necessary for enabling one of the organization’s largest resources—its human talent.

Is a ten-minute video on the making of a chair worth your time? When it so beautifully demonstrates a balance of modern industrial process and handcrafting, we think so.

The Branca chair, inspired by the twists, turns, and seamless transitions of a tree branch, seems as if it were formed by nature. Evident in the video, making such a form is no simple task.

Sophisticated CNC mills slowly carve complex parts from wooden blocks. Skilled crafts people attend to the final shaping, hand finishing, and careful assembly. To realize Branca, both are necessary.

The result says Branca’s designer Sam Hecht is “Comfortable, not just to the eye, but to the body and the hands.”

Every year, late in the month of May, we celebrate the birthdays of George Nelson and Alexander Girard. Director of design and director of textiles, respectively, these two men established design as central to all aspects of the company. In many instances their works were the face of Herman Miller to the world. We owe them much.

In love with each other and design, Brendon Breen and Justine Alcantara arranged to have their engagement photos taken at our LA Showroom. Surprised and flattered, we wondered what led two young design enthusiasts to pick such an unconventional venue.

Why have your engagements photos taken at Herman Miller’s LA showroom?
Justine: For me, engagement photos tell a lot about a couple, and I wanted ours to be a reflection of us. I wanted to capture our personalities.

Brendon: All the credit goes to Justine on this one. I actually wasn’t bright enough to conjure up such a brilliant idea. She knows my passion for modern classics, and we wanted a location that would really tell our friends and family who we were. That is when she came up with the idea for the Herman Miller showroom. Not only could we have great photos sitting in our favorite pieces, but the architecture of the building itself was stunning as well.

Both of you are self-professed design enthusiasts, can you share was that means?
B: I guess it’s as simple as saying design runs my life. More than a hobby, or even a career, it is who I am.

J: For me, it’s simply just a love, respect and appreciation for good, clean design. I love it all, interior, graphic, typography, and event design. I love how inspired I feel every time I encounter something out of the ordinary.

Does design have a role in your everyday lives?
J: Yes, it really does. Although I don’t come from a design background, I am constantly educating myself. At first, you may not notice that design plays a part in your life, but for us it shapes our decisions and even our mood.

B: Design as a whole runs everyone’s lives, from the pants you put on every morning to the car you drive. For me it runs deeper than that; design can offer a more stimulated, happier lifestyle. As a collector of classic modern furniture, I compare design to a fine painting. People have a certain feeling when they look at art; that is how I look at furniture, as well as all modern architecture.

Do younger generations view design differently than their parents? How so?
B: I definitely think the generations view it differently. Good design was more of the norm in the past. Homes, cars, clothing etc. were done “right.” People are taking notice of that and you can see the influence in fashion, furniture, and architecture designed today. In my opinion, design in the past was not as disposable as it is now. Our parent’s generation would have bought a home, or an Eames lounge, and kept it for 30 years.

J: I agree with Brendon, we are in a generation of constant change. With that, we consistently want the newest and greatest. I would say the biggest difference is the growing number of people aware of good design.

Can design change the world?
J: Most definitely. Design is everywhere! It is basically a blueprint on how we function in our everyday lives. If done correctly, the possibilities are endless.

B: With out a doubt. With the world growing, and demands seeming impossible, the design community will have to become more innovative and resourceful.

“Old Sun” was designed in 1972 as part of the Environmental Enrichment program Girard created for Herman Miller.

All that togetherness can cause problems, though, with cries for quiet piercing the office buzz. Putting people too close together without places they can go to concentrate can backfire. That’s why smart companies are using some of the real estate they save to design other types of spaces, such as community zones, gathering areas, quiet rooms, and phone booths, so people have choice and variety in where they work. These companies are cutting real estate costs while giving employees a better workplace. It becomes a matter of making real estate work harder, so it costs less and it gives people an appealing, inspiring place where they can to do their best work.

What will the future look like? To answer that question, we worked with students from two U.S. design schools, Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Pratt Institute, to help them realize their vision. The results were on display this week at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York—and even won an award.

Each school worked within a theme. Cranbrook students contemplated the challenges of the modern office, imagining a work culture in which living and working blend even more deeply than they do today. The students at Pratt sought to create designs that balance body and mind in ways that potentially increase health benefits and elevate mood and productivity while providing a greater degree of personal satisfaction from the user experience.

The students collaborated closely with Herman Miller. As Gary Smith, our Director of Design Facilitation & Exploration, noted, “The process helped the students understand the complex set of voices beyond the designer’s own, which are necessary to achieve commercial success.”

The resulting designs offer a look at the future from the people who will be creating it.

It’s a 50-cent word, but “dematerialization” just might save us millions, to say nothing of our planet. The basic idea is getting down to only what is essential, or, as Charles Eames said in the 1940s, “the best for the most for the least.”

Doing more with less certainly predates Mr. Eames, but dematerialization has had a resurgence lately, largely as a response to conspicuous consumption (McMansion anyone?), a throwaway culture (it’s cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old one), and planned obsolescence (as Annie Leonard says in The Story of Stuff, only 1% of things are still in use 6 months after purchase).

It’s no wonder those concerned about sustainability see promise in dematerialization, an idea whose logic train goes from using less material to eliminating material altogether while still delivering the same level of functionality. An example of this promise they often point to is music delivery. From LPs to cassettes to CDs to digital downloads, the progression eliminated lots of plastic waste and the resources and energy needed to make it. (The sustainability costs of using the Internet to download the music will be left to another discussion.)

We find examples of dematerialization closer to home. One is the Setu chair designed by Studio 7.5 of Berlin, Germany. The chair’s two spines provide tilt-like kinematics in one continuous seat and back, eliminating the need for a tilt mechanism.

Reducing material and actually improving a product’s performance is the theme of another chair, SAYL designed by Yves Béhar. In SAYL’s case, seat base, arm structure, and tilt mechanism undercarriage are fused into one, strong part that reduces material content. The chair’s The Y-Tower structure is sculpted and hollowed out, achieving strength with less material.

Eliminating an object altogether is the logical conclusion of dematerialization. Short of developing a way for people to levitate, we think making every molecule in a chair work harder is an acceptable alternative.

Herman Miller Creative Director Ben Watson introduces our New York City pop up shop in this video for design blog PSFK. Open until July 1, 2012, Pop Up is an opportunity for everyone to meet the Herman Miller Collection: classic designs from our archives alongside new pieces from our contemporary design partners.

Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

Herman Miller Pop Up Shop
68 Wooster Street, Soho
New York, NY 10012

Store Hours:
M-Sat 11-7
Sun 12-5

Essential Eames is a traveling exhibition tracing the life and work of the Eameses. A collaboration between Herman Miller and the Eames office, the show invites visitors to dive into the many facets of Charles and Ray, from architecture to film, and from toys to products and furniture.

Beginning in Hong Kong as part of Herman Miller Reach, the successful exhibition has recently moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where will be open until June 22.

More information here.

For University of Washington student Erik Alskog, “It’s the students who make campus green.” Busy thinking up new ways to make their school earth friendly, Alskog and his fellow classmates are redefining what it means to be green. They challenge us to imagine bike-powered monorails connecting campus with the surrounding areas where students live; new forms of wind farming that mimic swaying blades grass; and products designed to last a hundred years.

Alskog was one of three winners in our third annual Student Video Contest. We posed the question, “What makes your campus green?,” students everywhere responded, and viewers selected the winners.

Alskog is not alone in thinking of the future; students today see themselves as green innovators working to make their campuses more environmental.

To see some of the other great videos we received, click here.

Today marks the opening of the Herman Miller Pop Up Shop at 68 Wooster Street in the heart of Soho in New York City. Designed to highlight the new Herman Miller Collection, the shop features richly detailed furniture vignettes with accessories and objects to complement. Each is created to tell design stories past and present. We invite you to add the shop to your itinerary if you travel to Manhattan between now and July 1. The store is open Monday through Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm, and Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm.
View directions and map

Herman Miller's new Quilty textile mimics the water and oil repellant properties of a lotus leaf.

Biologist, innovation consultant, and author, Janine Benyus has dedicated her life to the idea that learning from natural models is the best way to achieve sustainable design. Through her Biomimicry Guild, she has inspired companies to look to nature as model, measure, and mentor in the design process.

She has a lot in common with Charles Eames, who said that design “depends largely on constraints.” For Benyus, it’s a matter of the way everything on earth, with the regrettable exception of most humans, learns to live within nature’s limits.

Mimicking nature’s wisdom results in products such as Quilty textile. It uses engineering on the molecular level to mimic the surface of the lotus leaf so that water and oil roll off its surface.

Benyus was recently honored with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for her pioneering work. Her willingness to learn from the limits nature imposes recalls another Eames statement from nearly 50 years ago: “Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible and his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.”

Meridian filing and storage units are one of the first products to use counterweights made from the new cement mix containing recycled powdercoat.

Designing for a Better World means being mindful of the environmental impact of our products. In the past this led us to discontinue rosewood until a sustainable alternative could be found. Today it means eliminating one of our largest landfill items: the overspray from our powdercoating process.

Working in collaboration with a local West Michigan supplier, VanderWall Brothers Concrete, Herman Miller has found a way to recycle leftover powdercoat into a cement mix. The mix is used to make the counterweights that sit in the bottom of filing and storage units, preventing them from tipping over when the drawers are extended.

Testing has even shown the recycled powdercoat improves the binding qualities of the cement, producing a stronger block.It may even have applications in construction products.

Solving an industry-wide problem, we decided to share the new process with all of our competitors, ensuring that maximum environmental impact.

From stone-tipped axes to powerful 3D computer modeling programs, technology has always allowed design to push the boundaries of possibility.

The Atlantic recently included the Herman Miller SAYL chair, designed by Yves Béhar, on their list of designs using new technology to challenge the conventional understanding of how good design looks, feels, and functions. We are in good company. Visit the Atlantic to see the complete list.

The George Nelson X-leg table, selected by BassamFellows to join the Herman Miller Collection.

Serving as the Creative Directors of Herman Miller’s Specialty and Consumer division since 2010, BassamFellows’ Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows have been part of the brain trust curating the Herman Miller Collection. “We teach each other new things,” says Fellows. “We’re learning a lot about industrial production at a large scale, and they’re [Herman Miller] learning from us that hand or touch, the little details, that make all the difference.”

Giving life to George Nelson’s concept of the living room and the work room melding together have had BassamFellows looking through the old catalogs and designs to identify pieces and get them to the people. The collection features many well-loved pieces such as Nelson’s X- leg table and Eames chairs reinvented in new materials.

The Herman Miller Collection celebrates the past and present with more than 200 products. Added to this will be new furniture and accessories from today’s most talented designers.

The Collection will be making its first public display in the Herman Miller Pop Up Shop designed by BassamFellow. Located in the heart of New York City’s Soho district, the Pop Up Shop will open May 9 and run through July 1, 2012.

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, Brian Kane revealed that every design begins the same way: with paper and a pencil. “That is my favorite part of the process—having a good concept come alive on my drawing board!”

To sketching, Kane adds observation. In the case of Swoop, Kane drew on his experience teaching students at the California College of the Arts. He noticed students didn’t sit, as much as they drape themselves across furniture, and they constantly rearranged their furniture for working, meeting, or socializing.

Under Kane’s pencil, a line of modular lounge seating took form. Composed of tables, chairs, and lounges, each piece designed to be arranged, and rearranged. Curved arms encourage relaxation, while discouraging students from setting their soda cans on the upholstery. And deliberately few seams reduce the places for crumbs to collect.

For Kane, “It’s all about comfort and innovation.” Two qualities evident in his designs for Swoop.

Check out Crafting Chairs For How We Sit Now to learn more about Brian Kane’s career designing furniture.

For more than 30 years, George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames worked with Herman Miller to create iconic designs. While known for pieces like the Coconut chair, Marshmallow sofa, and molded plywood chairs, the truth is there was little these talented designers didn’t do.

From their respective offices in New York and Los Angeles, Nelson and the Eameses oversaw multidisciplinary firms that designed everything from exhibits to films to catalogs. The vintage print ads, above, are just a few examples of the graphic design contributions that defined the visual identity of the Herman Miller brand for decades.

To check out high-resolution versions of the ads,

Getting Down to Cases, 1952

New Designs by Eames, 1953

Indoor Outdoor Group, 1958

Collector’s Item, 1959

Timeline, 1960

Beware of Imitations, 1963

What is ailing in fine furnishings? “Nature,” answers design duo Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows. “I really feel that a connection to nature is what makes Modernism human,” says Bassam, who sees their work as an antidote to novelty-driven and mass-produced design.

Principally made from hand-finished wood, brass, and leather, furniture designed by BassamFellows follows their belief in “core luxury values”: honesty of material, solidity of construction; utility and beauty without elaboration. With the Tuxedo lounge seating, part of the Herman Miller Collection, the goal remains the same: an attention to luxury detail that doesn’t compete with the rest of the room.

Designing a sofa for the Herman Miller Collection was a “daunting challenge,” says Goetz. “If I were sitting in a room with Eames, Nelson, and Noguchi, and we were discussing design, I would be listening rather than talking,” he said. “When designing the sofa, I took on that role, trying to understand the qualities of the Collection that make it so wonderful. I wanted to create something that echoes the Collection and respectfully adds to it.”

Understanding that design is deeper than styling, Goetz made sure that his sofa would be comfortable, no matter what position you are in. He conducted research and consulted experts to arrive at a seat depth that provides ergonomic sitting support as well as room to lie down.

The result is a design that shares good company with the works of Eames, Nelson, and Noguchi.