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What inspires us and what we hope will inspire you and all the members of the Herman Miller community.

Products, Technology, What's Up December 7, 2009

Sky-High Energy Savings at the Empire State Building

By Randall Braaksma

Empire State Building
The venerable New York landmark is set for a $20 million upgrade. The goal is to make it a model of sustainability. To help make that happen, the skyscraper will get advanced lighting controls from Convia/A Herman Miller Company. Those controls will contribute to an expected 40% reduction in energy use.

Better World, Design, Technology November 13, 2009

Achieving the Promise of Programmable Environments

By Bill Holm

pe2
Note: This is the fourth in a series about Herman Miller’s Programmable Environments (PE) initiative. To read the first post, see “Getting Buildings and People In Sync.” Second post: “Cut Electrical Use, Get ‘Stimulused,’ and Earn LEED Credits.” Third post: “Energy Manager Saves Energy, Optimizes Real Estate, Cuts Costs.”

According to Always Building, Herman Miller’s book about PE, “To achieve programmable environments, we think about a digital as well as physical dimension of space.” Integrating the digital dimension can make a building smarter, more efficient, and responsive to the people who use it.
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Better World, Design, Technology November 6, 2009

Energy Manager Saves Energy, Optimizes Real Estate, Cuts Costs

By Bill Holm

Energy Manager
Note: This is the third in a series. To read the first post, see “Getting Buildings and People In Sync.” For the second post, “Cut Electrical Use, Get ‘Stimulused,’ and Earn LEED Credits.”

What if someone invented a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your car to save you gas? Genius, right?

Well then, check this out. It’s Herman Miller’s new Energy Manager—a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your Herman Miller systems furniture (new or retrofit) to save you electrical energy, 24/7.
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Better World, Design, Technology October 30, 2009

Cut Electrical Use, Get ‘Stimulused,’ and Earn LEED Credits

By Bill Holm

convia
Note: This is the second in a series. To read the first post, see “Getting Buildings and People In Sync.”

The nutshell idea for Programmable Environments (PE) is to use technology to fill new or existing buildings with intelligence. The building becomes a digital network so that permanent fixtures become adaptable. You can make them do exactly what you need them to do at any moment, change them instantly, and gather real time information about how they are used.

And it’s easy. Here’s the story:
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Better World, Design, Technology October 23, 2009

Getting Buildings and People In Sync

By Bill Holm

Note: This is the first in a series of four posts on Programmable Environments.

You hear it all the time: “Technology has changed everything.” Well, duh. But it’s not totally accurate. There’s one part of our daily lives that’s largely untouched by the changes. It’s the buildings where we work and live—static, rigid, set in their ways.

While technology makes us faster, our buildings often hold us back. Unable to keep up with change—much less enable change—our buildings become out of sync with us.
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