Can’t make it to Cranbrook? The next stop will be the Nelson’s alma mater, the Yale School of Architecture.

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.

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.