The Herman Miller Resolve Showroom was the only recipient of the Most Excellent Award at this year’s NeoCon, which took place in June at The Merchandise Mart, Chicago. The Most Excellent award program was instituted to select the “Best of the Best” by jurors from all sectors of the office industry. It signifies that the product (or showroom, or person) has achieved something beyond good, or very good, or novel, or particularly useful.
While usually the Most Excellent Awards are presented for products and showrooms (large and small), this year there is only a single recipient: the Herman Miller Resolve Showroom. It would be an error to attempt to attribute the high achievement of this presentation to excellent space design, on the one hand, or the innovative design of the Resolve system, on the other. Rather, it is the whole—a combination of fine product design, as incorporated into the workspace, which is the object of all of efforts in office design.
Designed by industrial designer Ayse Birsel, the Resolve office system without panels was immediately recognized as a breakthrough system. Its infrastructure (or scaffold) elements—including an overhead trough and vertical poles that plan only at 120 degrees and supplementary angles—compelled office design toward the ideal, the openness, envisioned by Bob Probst in his original conception of the Action Office system. The overall structure defines a “community” of work spaces; the overhead tracks can carry messages bubbling along as in an electronic stock ticker. Worksurfaces float on a series of tables and storage includes towers, pedestals and hanging components. The system is not only striking when viewed as a whole, but is beautifully detailed and provides designers with the tools to create interesting and exciting office landscapes.
For NeoCon, the system was set appropriately in a coolly elegant, minimal showroom whose surreal, white interior and state-of-the-art electronic gear invested the space with an atmosphere, at once futuristic and seductive. The showroom was designed by The Environments Group (Robert Nassar, consultant, and Joyce Mast, graphic design) and Krueck & Sexton. Herman Miller Vice President Rick Duffy oversaw the overall design and installation. Particularly arresting was the 3-dimensional ceiling with suspended metal fins tracing complex curves throughout the space, designs made possible only by CADD technology. The display made liberal use of glass and theatrical lighting, serving as an impressive fulfillment of the promise seen in Ms. Birsel’s radical design concept of a hexagonally planned office system.
Resolve was introduced on a limited basis at NeoCon 1999 and took last year’s Most Excellent Product Award. For NeoCon this year, Resolve was fully developed and completely operational. Herman Miller received $2 million in orders the first day the system became available, and current sales are already exceeding third year projections.
Based on a report from officeinsightTM
