We’re excited to announce that Herman Miller will be at the Dwell design conference this year for the first time. The design conference runs from this Friday through to Sunday. If you are in Los Angeles please do stop by the convention centre and say hello. On Friday Eames Demetrios will sit down with Dwell’s editor in chief, Sam Grawe, to discuss the Eames Aluminum group chair, its origins at the J. Irwin Miller house in Columbus, Indiana, and the enduring legacy of this now iconic design.
We’ve put together an incredible trip to the Miller House (see the slideshow below for pics from my trip to the iconic home) that you can win. It includes flights to Columbus, two nights accommodation at the Inn at Irwin Gardens and, of course, a tour of the Miller House plus an architectural tour of Columbus – a town that sports some of the best modernist architecture in the country. For more details click here.
The need to collaborate with scheduling is something that every busy person is quite familiar with. After a request from a friend on what online shared calendars exist outside of Google Calendar, we decided to compile this list.
Famundo: With tools created for families and organizations, Famundo aims to be a product that makes it easy for a family or a small group to keep abreast of appointments and events with numerous ways to communicate and a private place to store photos. Free, Plus = $49 a year.
AirSet: Instead of simply being a shared online calendar, AirSet is basically a “cloud computer,” with it you can of course collaborate with schedules but also backup and share files. Free – $7 a month. Read more
Ergonomics. It is such a dry term. But every single day, regardless of the work we do, we put our body through a whole series of tasks that bring us into contact with tools. Tools that may or may not help our body perform those tasks in a healthy way. I love the idea of sitting down and writing for hours on end – maybe because I’ve got two kids and nothing ever happens for hours on end anymore! Interruptions are embedded into my work day. But even for shorter stretches I’m finding a good chair is an absolute must. Once you’ve got that right, then the desk comes into play. How do I get that surface to work for me as beautifully as my chair?
It’s fascinating to follow our designers as they make that same journey – from chair to desk. The late Bill Stumpf and Jeff Weber were working on the Embody chair when they stumbled on another problem – how we interact with our computers, those screens that we are glued to for so much of our day. Instead of thinking just about the chair the designers took in the whole work universe – chair, work surface and surrounds. They started to consider the desk and chair as a single system. The idea was to create a synergy between the chair and desk that would accomodate all of the ways we like to sit and work. And would do it ergonomically. Ah, that magic word again. Their radical solution was the Envelop desk. A clever design that moves with you as you shift position through out the day.
Artist Eamon O’Kane is Professor of Visual Art at Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway and has had over forty international solo exhibitions. His artwork hangs in numerous public and private collections worldwide including Deutsche Bank, Microsoft and Bank of Ireland Collection.
His paintings have focused on classic examples of modern architecture, including the Eames House, while his more recent work includes installations like the Eames Studio LimerickandFroebel Studio: A History of Play (pictured below). This installation, with its playroom quality, was inspired in part by the fact that Eames, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Piet Mondrian, were educated using the Froebel method of teaching with blocks and shapes.
Above: Eamon O’Kane and his installation Froebel Studio: A History of Play which was part of the BROODWORK: It’s About Time exhibition.
Here O’Kane describes his live/work studio in a wonderful abandoned plant nursery in Denmark.
The date is set – the teams are organized. On September 16 in Hong Kong a world first in sport will take place – the inaugural Pan Asia Pacific Aeron Hockey Championships. Teams from different countries around the region will compete for a chance to be crowned the champions. We are wondering if these guys might be headed to the Olympics? Check out the full hockey post over on Discover. Does anyone play this here in the States? We’d love to know. Might be a nice way to get out of the home office and bond with fellow Aeron fans!
Above: The joys of Aeron Hockey – this game was played in Melbourne, Australia.
If your Monday is feeling a little slow and the coffee hasn’t quite kicked in yet check out this short video by a Japanese graphic designer. Maybe some of that creativity will rub off!
Not that Whitehouse. This Whitehouse is a film editing company that started life in London – in a little white house. 20 years on they now have offices all over the world, including the Chicago office, featured here, which was designed by Los Angeles architect Bruce Bolander.
Above: The Whitehouse’s updated Chicago office. Photo by Mike Schwartz. Below: The company’s partners – Rick Lawley, Matthew Wood and David Brixton. Photo: Jen Shelley
Whitehouse partners and editors David Brixton, Rick Lawley and Matthew Wood were deeply involved in the creative decision-making of the project. ”Often what’s missing on a commercial project is the client point-of-view. Rick Lawley took the time to fly out to Chicago with me several times,” says Bolander. “We’d spend the car ride out discussing the project, and then I’d have the time on the flight to draw what we had talked about, Four undisturbed hours without the phone or computer to work side-by-side with the client is a rare creative luxury in this day and age.”
2. Architects + Artisans for its design coverage and clean site. Love an easily navigated page!
3. Geoff Mcfetridge for his wonderful burnt toast. He used 2,430 pieces of toast to animate OK GO‘s Last Leaf song. This definitely falls under the ‘take a break’ category.
4. DezeenScreen for its interview with Linda Morey Smith, the designer behind the Red Bull offices in London. Interesting look at how people work and the way corporate interiors are taking their inspiration from residential spaces.
5. Observers Room over at Design Observer for Rob Walker’s post on the Google map pin.
6. Fast Co Design‘s post on Evernote’s iPad app that utilizes the Smart Cover so brilliantly.
7. GOOD for their post on the Highline. Section 2 is now open to the public and it makes me wish I lived in New York every time I look at those images. What a perfect place to take a mid-morning break from the desk.
8. Abitare for their Design Basel coverage (and google for letting me translate it!)
9. Mark magazine for some incredible architecture. You can see quite a bit using the preview option for each magazine.
10. Cool Hunting for their Fab.com post. I know there are a lot of these discount sites around (I think I belong to most of them) but this one seems to have some great content. Those Milton Glaser poster’s would be perfect for my home office.
Charles Eames was born on June 17, 1907, which would make today his 104th birthday. He and his wife Ray were valued members of the Herman Miller family. You can read about our collaboration with them here. In 2009 Eames Demetrios celebrated his grandfather’s birthday with a TED talk. It’s a pleasure to share the talk with you today. Happy Birthday Charles!
Check out Discover for David Foster’s take on the Eames legacy.
Have you seen the Ten Best Looking (Free!) Screen Savers? Probably yes. Fliqlo and Word Clock are everywhere now—probably thanks to that super low price point! But you don’t have to spend a ton to get a truly unique and useful clock screen saver. In fact, you don’t have to spend anything. How do you know when a screen saver has jumped the shark and become too popular for it’s own good? Maybe when you see it staged as the computer background in a Sears catalog. Or when your grandma says she has the same one on her 1997 Gateway computer.
You know it’s time to drop Fliqlo and move on to a new screen saver. Here are a few screen clocks that will have your friends crooning, “Where’d you get that?!”:
