Specify 2019

Specify

2019

The People, Products, and Ideas to Know for Your Next Project

Brain Power

9 People Shaping American Design Now

Specify — 2019

Advancing Wellness

Mind, Body, Ecology Top Picks at

NeoCon 2019

#MetropolisLikes Winners

Upali Nanda, at HKS in Dallas

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From the Editors of

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plexus conference Sophisticated, powered with USB Design: busk + hertzog

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Thea Quanta

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Contents

A corner of Gensler Atlanta’s incubator space, whose design was led by Meena Krenek, profiled on p. 60

Editor’s Letter Working on Wellness

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Snapshot METROPOLIS reviews a year of commercial interior design.

36 Metropolis Likes The editors reflect on the 2019 #MetropolisLikes NeoCon winners.

52 Breakthrough The #MetropolisLikes winner that most advanced the field in sustainability 67

Wellness MIND An elementary school supports children’s whole well-being.

ECOLOGY Sustainable products for health BODY Rachel Gutter on WELL v2

90 Showroom Listings METROPOLIS’s Must Sees at the Mart and beyond in 2019 92

Flashback Time traveling to wellness at work in 1979

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Specify

2019

Product designers presenting beautiful innovations at NeoCon and emerging talents in commercial interior design

The People, Products, and Ideas to Know for Your Next Project

Brain Power

9 People Shaping American Design Now

Specify — 2019

12 Event A panel at NYC’s Center for Architecture puts the spotlight on specifying.

Specify

Hot List

Advancing Wellness

Mind, Body, Ecology Top Picks at

NeoCon 2019

#MetropolisLikes Winners

Upali Nanda, at HKS in Dallas

24 Suzanne Tick Luum’s creative director reflects on past and present.

60 Meena Krenek The design director behind Gensler Atlanta’s incubator

28 OFFICIAL A Dallas-based firm makes its workplace debut.

78 Upali Nanda The mind behind HKS’s cutting-edge research

32 Patricia Urquiola The designer responsible for Haworth’s new collection and revamped showroom

82 Studio Blitz The firm inspired by its tech-world clients

54 The Bouroullecs The brothers update stained glass with Skyline Design.

86 Randy Rubin Crypton’s cofounder pushes textiles to new heights.

From the Editors of

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On the Cover Upali Nanda, principal and director of research at HKS, studies the impact of design on the human mind (p. 78).

She was photographed at the HKS Design Lab in Dallas

by Antonio Chicaia.

andrew thomas lee

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58 Brian Tolman The Convene SVP is leading its metrics-powered strategy.

2019

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knolltextiles.com

Wall

IN STOCK

Introducing KnollTextiles In Stock Wall program KnollTextiles In Stock Wall program offers a curated selection of extreme performance woven and Type II vinyl wallcoverings in our most popular colors starting at $17 per yard.

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Specify BELLEROPHON PUBLICATIONS, INC. Metropolis Magazine Horace Havemeyer III FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER 1981–2014

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT President Eugenie Cowan Havemeyer Treasurer Gerard L. Yarnall Chief Strategy Officer/Chief Operating Officer Jerry L. Croft

EDITORIAL

Publishing

EDITOR in chief Avinash Rajagopal

Advertising DIRECTOR Tamara Stout (212) 886-2529/(917) 449-2845 tamaras@metropolismag.com

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Samuel Medina

Art Director Travis M. Ward

Managing Editor Lila Allen

SENIOR Editor Katie Okamoto

DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGIST Zachary Edelson ASSISTANT EDITOR Akiva Blander

DESIGNER Carlos Dominguez PHOTO EDITOR Kelly Rakowski FACT CHECKER Leilah Stone Copy editor Benjamin Spier

Editorial Production Manager Jim Goss Editorial interns Joseph P. Sgambati III

Account Managers James Carr (212) 886-2508 jimc@metropolismag.com

Colin Villone (917) 216-3690 colinv@metropolismag.com

Michael Croft (224) 931-8710 michaelc@metropolismag.com

Scott Cunningham (770) 913-0115 scottc@metropolismag.com

Advertising Production Manager Paul Stumpf (212) 886-2526 pauls@metropolismag.com PRINT AND DIGITAL AD SALES COORDINATOR Diana Tan (212) 886-2551 dianat@metropolismag.com

VP, Digital strategy Heidi Strong heidis@metropolismag.com

VP, MARKETING Mark Vance markv@metropolismag.com

DIRECTOR OF SPONSORED EVENTS Daniel Weisman danielw@metropolismag.com

SPECIFY is a publication of Bellerophon Publications, Inc. 205 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016 T (212) 627-9977 info@metropolismag.com

MARKETING EDITOR Aastha Deshpande aasthad@metropolismag.com

events COORDINATOR Virginia Hanusik virginiah@metropolismag.com

For METROPOLIS subscriptions or service T (800) 344-3046 F (903) 636-4013 CustomerService@MetropolisMagazine.net

CONTROLLER Nancy W. Olson nancyo@metropolismag.com

STAFF ACCOUNTANT Camille Lawson camillec@metropolismag.com

Human Resources/ Office MANAGER John Chattin johnc@metropolismag.com

TECHNICAL product and systems administrator Michael Ma michaelma@metropolismag.com

Laurel Rogers

CIRCULATION CONSULTANTs Mike Tolen, ProCirc Rachel Newcomb, ProCirc (212) 840-2161

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2019

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M CO G IN N O SO

A New Movement in Conference Seating See Summa, and more, at NeoCon | Showroom #351

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humanscale.com/Summa

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Editor’s Letter

Working on Wellness

L W

ast November, the Mart in Chicago became the largest privately owned building to receive a Fitwel twostar rating from the Center for Active Design, which recognizes buildings that support the physical, mental, and social health of their occupants. The Mart’s achievement puts it in line with the growing movement toward wellness in American commercial interiors and, since it is the home of NeoCon, helps it set an example for those who have yet to get on board.

We all need to ask how our projects and products can have a positive impact on the well-being of humans and the planet, how we can verify and quantify that impact more precisely, and how that can in turn form the basis for continual improvement.

As the three pieces in the special section on Wellness (p. 67) in this edition of Specify explore, there is always room for growth. A school in Boston shows how our awareness of the connections between design and mental health can benefit educational spaces (“A Bridge Farther,” p. 68). The CEO of the International WELL Building Institute shares her team’s efforts to make the WELL Building standard more inclusive (“Redefining Fitness,” p. 76). And finally, representatives from leading A&D firms share the products they specify to support wellness (p.72).

In addition, as in our inaugural issue of Specify, we present ten of the most significant spaces designed in North America in the past year (“A Year in Interiors,” p. 14) and identify the big ideas reflected in the winners of the #MetropolisLikes awards (p. 36). Our Hot List features product designers presenting innovations at NeoCon, as well as emerging and established talents in commercial interior design.

We hope you will find this companion to NeoCon and beyond both inspiring and informative. —Avinash Rajagopal, editor in chief

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JOIN US IN OUR CHICAGO SHOWROOM JUNE 10-12 | 325 N. WELLS STREET, SUITE 110 NATIONALOFFICEFURNITURE.COM

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Event

In the Details

A

t the heart of successful design lies the often-overlooked art of specification.

“I think something that’s an ongoing struggle for designers is that we always want to deliver the best possible space, with the most unique materials and furniture and vision, but there are also more pragmatic requirements that we have to consider,” said Greg Guerra, design director at IA Interior Architects, during a recent panel at New York’s Center for Architecture.

Titled “Simplifying Specification” and moderated

by Metropolis editor in chief Avinash Rajagopal, the event included input from Evelyn Choi, senior associate at Rockwell Group; Sara Duffy, senior interiors associate at Stonehill Taylor; Roshanak Ghavami, architectural designer at Corgan; Dale Greenwald, interior design leader and vice president

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at CannonDesign; Guerra; and Amy Mays, interior design director at HDR (above, far right).

The conversation underscored the shared challenges that designers face across project types when specifying materials and products. Among the solutions presented was bringing spec writers—who play a critical role in the process—into the design earlier.

“Spec writers are spread really thin and are usually not given a lot of time on the project,” Mays explained.

Panelists also discussed how to advocate for material transparency with clients who may not prioritize sustainability, as well as how to leverage technology when specifying. Above all, the panel agreed with the sentiment, expressed by Greenwald, that no matter the project, deadline, or budget, “the key challenge is finding product equivalence that maintains design intent.” M

courtesy John Magnotta

A round table at the Center for Architecture in New York City encouraged knowledge sharing about one of design’s least discussed tasks: specification.

By Leilah Stone

2019

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roomandboard.com/businessinteriors 800.952.9155

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Snapshot

A Year in Interiors We review the ideas shaping commercial interior design today.

By Katie Okamoto

Once heralded as the death knell for brick-and-mortar stores, online shopping has proved to be anything but. Instead, retail stores, released from the analog, have returned to their 19th-century roots as spectacle.

“The crowd is the veil through which the familiar city beckons to the flaneur as phantasmagoria—now a landscape, now a room,” wrote Walter Benjamin in Paris: Capital of the 19th Century. “Both become elements of the department store, which makes use of flanerie itself to sell goods. The department store is the last promenade of the flaneur.”

Today, that “last promenade” is a climax to an endless scroll, luring us in with its seasons of status, desire, and braggadocious modernity. This is the flagship as entertainment center—shoes as something to do and someone to be. See the Nike House of Innovation on New York’s Fifth Avenue, which pairs an app with a stunning 68,000-square-foot store to create—what else?—an experience. On the eve of the 2020s, the flagship has become the expression of our collective culture, feeding our hunger for status, optimization, and diversion.

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The New Flagship

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Nike House of Innovation 000 • Nike, Rockwell Group, Mode Lab, CallisonRTKL, Heintges Consulting Architects & Engineers • New York • Metropolis, January/February 2019

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Snapshot

Van Leer Interdisciplinary Design Commons • BLDGS • Atlanta • Metropolis, March 2019 Rios Clementi Hale Studios, Los Angeles • Rios Clementi Hale Studios • Los Angeles • Metropolis, September 2018

TOP TO BOTTOM: COURTESY BRUCE DAMONTE; COURTESY rios clementi hale studios; COURTESY TOM ARBAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Senate of Canada Building • Diamond Schmitt Architects • Ottawa • Metropolis, March 2019

Reuse Rebooted Reflecting on design in 2018 for Metropolis’s November/ December issue, critic Aaron Betsky declared reuse the “style of our time.” “The importance of reuse is both pragmatic and ideological,” he wrote. “We need to repurpose what we have because old buildings are better constructed, are usually located closer to infrastructure, and, well, are already there: We have more than enough of them. We need to reuse also because we can no longer afford to waste natural resources we cannot replenish.”

As technological advances have made nearly any conceivable structure and decoration possible—at least in theory—reuse appeals to more than just pragmatism and ideology. Good design needs constraints. Reuse is a fruitful mode of practice, forcing designers to confront their clichés and assumptions about how programs should relate to each other and what aesthetic values of the past mean to us now—and in the future.

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2019

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Maari

™

Everywhere you sit, it’s Maari.

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Snapshot

Post-Postmodern Hyperspace

Crossroads Hotel • El Dorado • Kansas City • Metropolis, March 2019 McDonald’s Chicago Flagship • Ross Barney Architects • Chicago • Metropolis mag.com, August 2018 Imperial Western Beer Company and The Streamliner Bar at Union Station • Janel Wright Design and AvroKO • Los Angeles • Metropolis, April 2019

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CLOCKWISE: COURTESY Mike Sinclair; COURTESY Kendall McCaugherty/Hall+Merrick Photographers; COURTESY ate 6 media

Nothing can have just one use anymore, least of all a hotel, which now is often also a gallery, an office, a brewery, a lab, a store, where you can get your hair cut and take a yoga class. In uncertain job and real estate markets, this many-faced approach to hospitality makes a lot of sense.

But what does it mean for the architecture?

Increasingly, it’s a neo-Miesian paradigm where columns get out of the way so things can happen, even if what things those are isn’t always clear.

Design like this touts “flexibility” as a kind of gospel.

More often than not, its actual use boils down to nothing more mysterious or less helpful than spots for folks to grab a drink and tap on laptops. But these aren’t non-spaces. A great deal of design goes into the creation of open possibility. The more successful projects can claim to support a civic realm: public or semipublic places in which to enjoy the outdoors, discover local artists, or stay for the price of a coffee.

2019

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ARCHITECTURAL TEXTURES COLLECTION

m e m o sa mp le s .c o m

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Snapshot

Slack Headquarters • Studio O+A • San Francisco • Metropolis, June 2019

Storytellers Less separates a good hospital from a good office than one might think. Both serve a variety of in-flux user groups—full-time employees, shift workers, visitors—and types of activities. The success of both relies on information shared between teams, often hinging on circulation and a delicate balance of what’s private and what’s social.

In an effort to improve the “experience” of users, designers are turning to lessons from hospitality, which emphasizes moments of arrival and respite and which 20

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assumes, always, that the guest is right. In this mode of design, narrative becomes more than an internal logic for developing a project’s program diagram; it manifests legibly. Designers reinforce stories with gestures both heavy-handed and subtle to shape people’s experiences, tying them back to ideas about an organization’s culture. We’re a storytelling species: Finding narratives in our physical environments can bring clarity, comfort, social connection, and personal attention where we might otherwise feel unmoored.

LEFT TO RIGHT: COURTESY Frank Oudeman; COURTESY Garrett Rowland

NewYorkPresbyterian David H. Koch Center • HOK, Ballinger, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners • New York • Metropolis, July/August 2018

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NEW YORK CITY

MINNEAPOLIS

MONTERREY

SAN FRANCISCO

CHICAGO

SYDNEY

LOS ANGELES

SEATTLE

MEXICO CITY

AUSTIN BLUDOT.COM

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Snapshot

Workplaces are arenas for corporate flexing. Who will seem more visionary, more progressive, more cutting-edge, more enticing to the hip and with-it?

In the more than quarter-century since the founding of the U.S. Green Building Council, environmental responsibility has become unquestionably cool.

And data to support its urgency, and the technologies to help close the loop, have made sustainability a potent imperative.

For image-conscious clients, projecting such responsibility as part of corporate culture is easier and easier, as technologies such as CLT (crosslaminated timber) construction gain traction in places like the Pacific Northwest and Canada. And with a growing selection of products that bear some sustainable credentials—reducing postconsumer waste or carbon footprints—design teams have little excuse not to specify accordingly.

With all this progress, some words of caution are in order. In design, as in our own lives, sometimes it’s not new things we need, but less of what we have. Sometimes the less shiny solution has the greatest impact. For designers who seek true environmentalism, it’s what you do, not what you display. M 22

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Interface Headquarters • Perkins+Will • Atlanta • metropolis mag.com, December 2018

First Tech Federal Credit Union • Hacker Architects • Hillsboro, Oregon • Metropolis, March 2019 TOP TO BOTTOM: COURTESY HALL+MERRICK PHOTOGRAPHERS; COURTESY JEREMY BITTERMANN

Sustainability on Parade

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Lost & Found Collection

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Suzanne Tick, pictured here at work at Studio Tick in New York City’s East Village, is also the creative director of Luum.

this page: COurtesy Martin Crook; courtesy luum

Opposite: Tick developed Future Tense, a new textile collection of five upholstery designs, for Luum.

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Hot List

Suzanne Tick

In her new collection for Luum debuting at NeoCon, the textile designer looks across time for inspiration.

By Sarah Archer

A

rtist and textile designer Suzanne Tick, founder of Tick Studio, tries to focus on the present. Each day, her staffers meditate together in the office, which is housed in an East Village town house where Tick also lives. The meditation is a prelude to conversation, she explains: “We clear our minds and then...have a thoughtful discussion of what’s happening in culture, art, and architecture.” But in her work, which includes both her studio weaving practice and her commercial designs for Skyline Design, Tandus Centiva, and Luum (where she is creative director), the designer often finds herself pondering time, whether she’s mining movements in art or contemplating design’s future demands. Her new collection for Luum, Future Tense, alludes to this way of thinking.

The signature product in Future Tense, Schema, is a large-scale pattern that comes in six vibrant colorways. Tick, a history buff, explains she is fascinated by the creative period surrounding the First World War, when seismic social and political shifts prompted artists and designers to experiment with abstraction and surrealism. Tick and Meagan Phipps, Luum’s design director and a collaborator on Schema, note that early-20th-century designers and artists found ways to represent tension and change while offering visual pleasure. And though the bold patterns of Schema evoke a geometric, constructivist sensibility, surrealism also played a role in its design, which was created “in response to contemporary tensions,” according to Phipps. “We’re living in a surreal time,” she notes, in which people can create their own realities thanks to digital technology and social media.

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The dialogue results in what Tick calls “a super graphic pattern that changes the dimensions of a space.” This adaptability is useful for “the ever-in-flux aesthetic demands of today’s offices,” which increasingly have to perform like the hospitality world. Schema allows interior designers to bring a wealth of color and pattern into a space, and add rich, woven texture.

If Schema offers a contemporary take on 20thcentury design, another Future Tense design, Color Fuse—which Tick calls “the first translucent polyurethane product”—looks like a message from the future.

Tick and her team experimented with warp and weft structures coated in polyurethane to produce a tough, durable fabric that makes its natural materials plainly visible as well. Color Fuse also features a coating that makes the textile easy to clean, and, for the observant, a visual surprise: “It’s not printed to look woven,” Tick says. “It’s the reverse.” Additionally, the line pays homage to yet another idea pulled from art history—the offbeat use of industrial materials, as in the work of Eva Hesse, the German-American sculptor who combined latex, plastic, and fiberglass in the 1960s.

Tick and her team make many, many prototypes and experiment widely to find solutions like the printing technique in Color Fuse. And just as they like to look at materials from an artist’s perspective, they also look at them in terms of cycles, seeing the reuse of industrial waste as a given in this era. Recycled materials such

as Recover Upcycled cotton—made from reclaimed shirts—are used to weave new fabric. Another product in the Future Tense line, Tilt Shift, is 41 percent this repurposed material. Its pattern is inspired by the forced perspective of architectural drawings, and the way in which proportions appear to change as people move through a space.

The future may be uncertain, but let’s face it: The present is tense. Today’s collections will inevitably reflect this moment of anxiety in the face of stark political division and accelerating climate change.

When it debuts at NeoCon this June, Future Tense will be the latest in Tick’s portfolio of work to demonstrate her ability to balance the practical and the theoretical. Tick’s commitment to upcycling and reuse, paired with her historical perspective on art and design, grounds her collections in an ancient tradition that’s shifting to meet the needs of our time. M

Bottom: Future Tense is composed of five upholstery designs: Actuate (left), Schema (center), Tilt Shift and Colorfuse (right), and Macro Tweed.

courtesy luum

Above: the upholsteries shown in application

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this page: courtesy official design; opposite: courtesy Robert Yu Photography

Amy Wynne Leveno and Mark Leveno founded OFFICIAL in 2012.

Their design for the 22,000-square-foot headquarters for Civitas Capital Group (opposite and subsequent page) is their first workplace project.

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Official

The Dallas design firm applies a multidisciplinary perspective to meet the challenges of creating a contemporary workplace.

By Kadie Yale

“W

e do a little bit of everything, and that’s how we wanted to create a firm,” says Amy Wynne Leveno about launching OFFICIAL, the Dallas-based design office she runs with her business partner and spouse, Mark Leveno. Now in its seventh year, the firm draws on its founders’ diverse backgrounds—Amy’s in civil engineering and architecture, and Mark’s in creative advertising, architecture, and furniture design.

“Something that differentiates us is our attention to [specifying] furniture, all the way down to the details and how that informs the bigger decisions we make,” Mark explains.

For years, OFFICIAL applied its talents to residential, retail, lighting, and product design, but workplace design was still terre inconnue. So when Civitas Capital Group, an investment firm, approached the designers about creating a 22,000-square-foot headquarters in downtown Dallas, they jumped at the chance. The client tasked the firm with conceiving a space that would merge many design considerations: attracting a younger workforce to the finance industry, which is often seen as conservative and stuffy; displaying sophistication, creative thinking, and responsible stewardship of clients’ investments; and even addressing the basic question of office layout—open or closed.

“We had a lot of discussions about the level of openness,” Amy says. “It was balancing what Civitas wanted against the zeitgeist of office design and the furniture that was available.”

“The backlash against the open office began when we were developing the drawings,” laughs Mark.

Civitas had dual needs. On one hand, the firm hoped to offer less-formal spaces for employees— ones that could be used for spontaneous meetings or quick brainstorming sessions. But as a finance business, the company also required more traditional client-facing waiting and conference rooms. The designers landed on a solution that balances both 2019

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work modes, crafting what are essentially front-ofoffice and back-of-office environments, separated by a door in Civitas’s trademark red. Clients and guests are greeted by an inviting waiting area complete with Snarkitecture’s eye-catching Topographies wallcovering for Calico—a subtle nod to Civitas’s global reach. The front-of-office area foregrounds comfort and formality, while back-of-office conference rooms lend themselves to the flexibility needed in a fastpaced setting.

The flexibility requirement also applied to furnishings. As the young company grows, it needs furniture that can be reconfigured and reused throughout departments to meet the evolving makeup of the office. It was imperative, then, that OFFICIAL keep uniformity in mind and eschew overly specialized surfaces. The space also needed to help foster a collaborative dynamic: Every employee should feel like an equal member of the team. OFFICIAL landed on a nonhierarchical setup with workstations on the perimeter of the office, giving everyone equal access to natural light and views of the city.

Both Amy and Mark credit their varied backgrounds for the creative response in coming up with a space that blends dichotomies seamlessly. When 30

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engaged in past residential projects, the Levenos recognized that there was often an extra layer of stress for the homeowners, who were altering their personal space. “We pride ourselves on listening,” she explains. “When you’re sitting down with people who are new to the design process, it’s important to get the right design the first time around.” With the Civitas team moved into its new location and positive feedback rolling in, it sounds as though OFFICIAL’s first office project did exactly that. M

courtesy Robert Yu Photography

The office, located in One Arts Plaza in Dallas’s Arts District, uses modern colors, forms, and details like Snarkitecture’s Calico wallpaper (bottom right) to delineate areas, both formal and informal.

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M75 | Vogtherr & Prestwich

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courtesy © studio us, llc

Patricia Urquiola demonstrates her modular Cabana system for Haworth (also shown opposite).

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Patricia Urquiola

Hot List

Urquiola gives Haworth’s Chicago showroom an inviting face-lift— and unveils her new resimercial collection for the manufacturer.

By Sheila Kim

T

he best collaborations evolve into partnerships, as has happened with Haworth and the Milan-based architect and designer Patricia Urquiola over the course of seven years. While they’re not exactly finishing each other’s sentences, the pairing has reached a familiarity that enables them to speak the same design language.

“We have become very good at interpreting our shared ideas and concepts,” affirms Urquiola. “This wonderful synergy that we have established allows our new collaborations to proceed in an easy and efficient way.” At this year’s NeoCon in Chicago, show attendees will encounter the latest fruits of that synergistic relationship.

Haworth has retained the same showroom within the Mart since 2004, but over the years it has found

occasion to revamp the space, tapping designers ranging from Clive Wilkinson Architects to Perkins+Will and Eva Maddox. Urquiola, who has transformed the 29,000-square-foot showroom for the 2019 fair, is a natural fit for the soft-contract market that is dominant right now.

Here she brings a more organic, decidedly uncorporate touch, where soothing color and material palettes are complemented by a thoughtful arrangement of Haworth products. Appealing to the eye, these moves are meant to demonstrate how even the slightest adjustments can support and enhance creativity, flexibility, and productivity.

The redesign organizes the floor area into three zones. A former porch, previously a setback space in front of the entrance, has been reclaimed to provide more interior square footage for displays 2019

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but also to push the reception back, creating a new place for greeting visitors. A new makerspace highlights Haworth’s manufacturing capabilities, while an operational knitting machine spits out textiles used in the company’s furnishings. Finally, what used to be a temporary café is now permanent, reflecting the social-engagement trend in workplaces today.

Urquiola’s sophisticated yet welcoming sensibilities come together in a new furniture line as well.

Office workers can find calm and quiet in Cabana’s highly configurable modules, which are debuting at NeoCon 2019. “The office is no longer thought of as a division of space, but rather a landscape of places for possible moments,” explains Urquiola.

Defined by their rounded corners and edges, the modules—lounge or active chairs and sofas, demountable acoustic privacy dividers, a corner

wedge table—can be aggregated into any number of arrangements. Accessories such as a reading lamp and bookshelf, in addition to embedded power outlets, increase the system’s functionality. (Haworth’s C-shaped Pip table also coordinates perfectly with Cabana, offering an alternative work surface that can be easily repositioned and tucked between seats.)

The furnishings, meanwhile, rest on skinny aluminum legs that help to create a weightless impression. “I like that the whole thing appears to be floating over the floor,” Urquiola says. “It has a sense of lightness and fun.”

Of course, the reconfigurable collection also boasts the warm and inviting palette expected of Urquiola. Quilted-textile and felt upholstery adds both visual and tactile comfort, for instance, while also evoking a handmade character. Cabana’s leather, wood, and accessory options are familiar and accessible. Pastel hues like pink and lavender further emphasize the move away from the buttoned-up corporate offices of yesteryear. The pieces wouldn’t be out of place in a living room, and that’s precisely the point. M

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courtesy © studio us, llc

Cabana comprises a number of modular parts that can be pieced together to create a personalizable, cocoonlike working environment.

2019

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M E TA L C O L L E C T I V E Inspired by the art of Kintsugi, Metal Collective resilient features a concrete visual with metallic inlays and subtle light reflections that embrace the cracks and accentuate the patina of this raw surface. What was once broken is now made stronger. Find beauty in the imperfections. © 2019 Shaw, a Berkshire Hathaway Company

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PATC R A F T.C O M | @ PATC R A F T F L O O R S | 8 0 0 . 2 4 1. 4 0 1 4 | S H O W R O O M 1 0 - 1 6 0

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Object Lessons

Left: a design, by Gunta Stölzl, on which one of the Designtex patterns is based Right: The Bauhaus Project, Designtex designtex.com

Now and Then History’s design movements can be remarkably prescient, and the Bauhaus—particularly its textiles—is one of the most famous examples. An especially forwardthinking Modernism took hold in its weaving workshops, espoused by its mostly female designers, who were 36

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among the first to experiment with color. With this year’s centennial of the school sparking interest in all its creative legacies, including Designtex’s revival of dozens of historic patterns, the textile designers of the Bauhaus are finally enjoying their day in the sun. —A.B.

this page, left to right: Courtesy bildkunst bonn; courtesy designtex; opposite: courtesy the designers and manufacturers

The editors unpack some themes that emerged while reviewing this year’s 33 winners of the #MetropolisLikes NeoCon awards.

By Akiva Blander and Katie Okamoto

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Metropolis Likes

A-Bench by Jehs+Laub, Davis davisfurniture.com

Line Up

Future Tense, Luum Textiles luumtextiles.com

Architects don’t build, they draw.

So it makes sense that the line is as beloved among designers as it is; it’s the unit of architectural representation, providing structure, boundaries, direction, and, when hatched, material. With the advent of digital drawing, the line has been reduced to its mathematical essence. A recent crop of minimalist products pay their respects to the line, expressing it in form and pattern. —K.O.

Oblique & Chevron by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Skyline Design skydesign.com

Thea by Roberto Lucci, Versteel versteel.com

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On & On by Barber & Osgerby, Emeco emeco.net

Nest Tables, Hightower hightoweraccess.com

Look Both Ways

by Kari Pei, Interface interface.com

Paravan Mood, Arper arper.com

courtesy the designers and manufacturers

BOB Job from Blå Station by Bernstrand and Borselius, Scandinavian Spaces blastation.com

Curve Appeal It’s become a truism that play is essential to innovation. As organizations place more value on fostering “culture,” and deemphasize one-to-one productivity, they’re hoping design can help coax out adults’ latent creativity. This theme has manifested as visual playfulness: smooth, friendly, vaguely anthropomorphic. This is furniture that keeps things light. It’s practical, flexible, and often modular, like a toy set—fitting for workplaces that idolize the kindergarten playground. —K.O. 38

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Rest and relaxation.

Redefined.

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DuPont™ Tedlar™ Wallcoverings Style that endures™ The DuPont Oval Logo, DuPont™, Style that endures™ and Tedlar™ Wallcoverings are registered trademarks or trademarks of DuPont Specialty Products USA, LLC or its affiliates. ©2019. DuPont. All rights reserved.

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Metropolis Likes

Knitting, Haworth haworth.com

Knit Picks Sneaker culture is everywhere; it’s even in our chairs.

For the recent surge in knitted textiles, the influence is explicit. With Haworth’s just-introduced computerized knitting, the company promises “a desk chair experience similar to that of a favorite running shoe.”

Importing techniques from fashion into seating makes a lot of sense: Knits are breathable, hug the curves of today’s complex forms, and provide loft (no need for fill) and seamlessness between different patterns (for tailored ergonomic support). And because the process is digital, customization possibilities for both look and performance are wide-open. —K.O.

courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Xorel Knits, Carnegie carnegiefabrics.com

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WWW.B E NT LEYM I LLS .C O M

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Metropolis Likes Ariane by Martin Ballendat, Sandler Seating sandlerseating.com

Gateway All-in-One Height Adjustable Table by Busk+Hertzog, Nienkamper nienkamper.com Architectural Textures by Sina Pearson, Momentum memosamples.com

There’s a curious interest in postwar offices lately, maybe because they feel so different from those of today. Perhaps in a backlash against the hypercasual nature of contemporary work culture, manufacturers and designers are looking to restore some of the old order, benefiting from a fond nostalgia and the distance of time. Some new products— including borderline-camp takes on the executive chair and revivals of time-honored materials like polished wood and houndstooth fabrics—are flouting our contemporary obsession with what can only be termed kindergarten-style workplaces, opting for a more grown-up, stately aesthetic. —A.B. 42

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courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Postwar Revival

Handloom, Patcraft patcraft.com 2019

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JUNE 8—10 2020

The world’s leading platform for commercial design theMart, Chicago neocon.com NeoCon® is a registered trademark of Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.

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Bene Box, Teknion teknion.com

iD Mixonomi, Tarkett tarkett.com

VEER by Aliki van der Kruijs, Wolf-Gordon wolfgordon.com

courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Basic Instinct With all the advances technology has enabled in product design—giving us hitherto-impossible geometries and seamless forms—sometimes simple is just right. A number of releases this year return to building blocks, whether they’re systems of actual boxes or tessellating units. There’s something refreshing about the approach.

Not everything useful, beautiful, or sustainable requires 3D modeling. —K.O. 44

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FREEDOM

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Metropolis Likes

Wallflowers Great design isn’t always showstopping or attention-seeking; it can play an important supportive role, helping to foster any desired atmosphere—visual, acoustic, haptic, and more. (As “The Dude” Lebowski said, “That rug really tied the room together.”) Subtle, unobtrusive fixtures that combine lighting and acoustic solutions, and surfaces with restrained palettes, are freeing up designers and users to concentrate on what matters in commercial spaces: focus, ease, and getting the job done. —A.B.

Clearwater, Brentano brentanofabrics.com

Acoustic Wing, LightArt lightart.com

courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Mixed Monolith, Mannington Commercial manningtoncommercial.com

Sakiori, Mohawk Group mohawkgroup.com 46

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VARIDESK® is office furniture made simple. Our complete line includes standing desks, meeting tables, seating, storage, and more. Everything is easy to order, assemble, and reconfigure as your needs change. No markups. No long lead times. No hassle. Just the furniture you need for your space, when you need it.

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Metropolis Likes

Verge by EOOS, Keilhauer keilhauer.com

Endelitae nemoluptat prem il molorec

JUMPER

by Jean Nouvel, VS America vsamerica.com

Chiaroscuro, CF Stinson cfstinson.com

Evergreen, Carolina carolina.ofs.com

Beauty isn’t always easy to justify or describe, and some new products are especially difficult to categorize.

Their proportions are exaggerated, their curves off-kilter, and their stances on the ground somewhat awkward—yet their appeal is undeniable. From chairs that humbly sit stout to textiles that up the ante on large-format patterns, they reflect designers’ heightened willingness to challenge accepted formulas. —A.B. 48

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Ascend Recliner, Krug krug.ca

courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Odd Charm

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Seattle September 12–13, 2019 Los Angeles October 29–30, 2019

Elevate Your Sustainability Conversation with the Right Audience In 2019, METROPOLIS is continuing the METROPOLIS PERSPECTIVE SUSTAINABILITY event series as we meet with the top A&D firms in Seattle and Los Angeles that need to know about your products and sustainability initiatives.

If you have a sustainability message, this is for you.

• Meetups with top A&D firms, delivering insight into their specifying process

To learn more about how you can get involved, contact:

• CEU-accredited panel discussions in each city, with the opportunity to have your sustainability expert participate • Sustainability leadership forum with architects and interior designers from multiple firms in each city • Networking lunches, receptions, and dinner to solidify your relationships with firms and their decision-makers

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Jerry Croft COO / CSO jerryc@metropolismag.com 847-612-1912

5/14/19 8:08 AM

Metropolis Likes

Indoor Park It’s no news designers are incorporating elements of nature into commercial settings. But if everything is biophilia, then nothing is. A slew of new products takes a more pragmatic, domesticated approach. These releases riff on natural patterns like wood grain, deploying forms and palettes you’d sooner see in a public park than in the great outdoors. Whether something is truly biophilic is beside the point; it’s clear designers are increasingly taking work outside, and the lessons of landscape design in. —A.B.

Flex, Steelcase steelcase.com The Shape of Things, KnollTextiles knoll.com

Reverse, Andreu World andreuworld.com

Naava One Slim, Naava naava.io, teknion.com 50

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courtesy the designers and manufacturers

Axyl Bench, Allermuir allermuir.com

2019

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MOHAWKGROUP.COM

Mohawk Group mirrors your sky-high aesthetics with down-to-earth solutions.

This approach is reflected in the comfort, soft textures and bulky yarns of Textural Effects in carpet planks and broadloom.

FEATURED: Thematic Thread, a carpet plank designed to meet the stringent requirements of the Living Product Challenge.

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5/14/19 12:22 PM 5/14/19 9:30 AM

Breakthrough

Break It Down

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n an average day, an estimated 44 million pounds of synthetic textiles are sent to landfills in the United States, coming to 16 billion pounds every year. And though awareness of the waste issue is growing, the trend still points up; the annual amount of textile waste has grown by almost 200 percent in the past 20 years. Synthetic textiles, unlike natural fibers, can’t biodegrade, so they, like most plastics, perniciously enter our ecosystems and food chains.

With this in mind, manufacturers are incorporating more postconsumer waste into their products, but 52

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Clean Impact Textiles Collection, Duvaltex duvaltex.com

the vast majority of textiles will still end up in landfills.

Duvaltex’s Clean Impact Textiles uses the industry’s first recycled, biodegradable polyester, meaning its fibers can break down in landfills and wastewater.

The innovation: During the yarn extrusion process, an added biocatalyst helps the fiber decompose through anaerobic digestion “at a rate similar to that of natural fibers,” the company claims.

The collection—a #MetropolisLikes NeoCon winner— doesn’t compromise on looks or performance. It’s available in five patterns and in vivid colors, and is suitable for high-traffic settings. M

courtesy duvaltex

In an industry first, Duvaltex’s new collection uses a biodegradable polyester material.

By Katie Okamoto

2019

5/15/19 11:59 AM

GET AWAY WITH REEFS Inspired by the infinite variety of underwater worlds where no reef is like the other, Reefs creates inviting collaborative areas with screens that optimize acoustics and offer visual privacy. Configure Reefs modular benches into traditional face-to-face meeting areas, informal lounge spaces or quiet island units for focus work. Color and pattern options are as diverse as the coral reefs themselves.

DESIGNER: Jessica Englehardt

Explore Reefs during NeoCon at Dauphin space 393. www.dauphin.com

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this page: Courtesy alexandre tabaste; courtesy Studio Bouroullec

Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec applied custom color analysis software to create a new collection of glass for Skyline Design.

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The Bouroullecs Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec’s new collaboration with Skyline Design harnesses generative design to enhance commercial interiors.

By Luke Baker

T

he prolific Parisian design duo Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec are no strangers to the contract industry, having produced successful workplace designs for Vitra, Kvadrat, and other manufacturers. The brothers’ reductive, linear aesthetic and keen sense of color explain the popularity of their designs in offices frequented by the young and creative, and their latest contract offering—a series of interior-exterior architectural glass panels—is no exception. Developed by the Bouroullecs in partnership with Chicagobased Skyline Design and debuting at NeoCon this month, the panels use custom color analysis software to create an abstract, immersive “stained glass” effect. The collection’s two primary designs—the diamondlike pattern Oblique, and Chevron, a zigzag look—are available in multiple colorways and graphic treatments, offering different degrees of scale, color saturation, and opacity.

With a glass panel portfolio including collections from superstars like Patricia Urquiola, Michael Graves, Alexander Girard, and Laurinda Spear, Skyline has long had an artistic bent. The Bouroullecs’ designs first caught the eye of Skyline’s creative director, Deborah Newmark, during a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2012. “I found the work intelligent, playful, inventive, and poetic in its elegance,” she recalls. “I was curious how they would approach glass on an architectural scale.”

For the Bouroullecs, the floor-to-ceiling format provided a means to enliven static interior environments with patterns that present a vista onto dynamic landscapes. “Glass is linked to what happens through a window—something which has a nature of movement, 2019

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of evolution,” says Erwan, describing the brothers’ intention to capture the sensation of seeing color and light shift outside as you walk around indoors.

As we take in our surroundings, our eyes synthesize huge amounts of visual data into a cohesive image. The Bouroullecs have developed Oblique and Chevron to do the opposite, and to sublime decorative effect. Their computer program deconstructs a photograph by distilling the image to its essential components of color and composition, abstracting these elements into each pattern’s lines and shapes to roughly re-create the balance of the picture. “It keeps the color, it keeps a little of the rhythm, but not [by] transferring the picture directly,” Erwan explains. Up close, both panel designs look like incredibly intricate stained-glass tessellations; when they are viewed as a panorama, the distinctions in the patterns become evident. Oblique, for instance, renders the image with the irregular rhythm of a bar code in variegated hues, while Chevron transforms it into an impressionistic gradient reminiscent of a giant Photoshop palette.

Throughout the year-and-a-half-long design process, the Bouroullecs worked with Skyline to refine the software, photographs, and prototypes. They 56

chose source photos that would lend themselves to variety in subtlety and contrast when output as tessellations, opting for images like moody landscapes and tonal nature photos. Specifiers can work with Skyline to select which portion of the photo will be used to generate the design, a process Erwan likens to picking a single passage from a dense tome such as Moby-Dick. “You need to extract a part of this novel— you have to choose the right part,” he explains. “What is the best chapter? What do you feel?” After experimenting with different production methods, Skyline and the brothers used translucent digital printing to achieve the luminosity and depth the panels required.

In the contract industry, where the standard for architectural glass is often clear, Oblique and Chevron introduce a symphony of delicately shifting colors that lend themselves to different sensations, applications, and moods. Installed as a feature wall in a corporate lobby, or along a corridor or facade, the patterns add visual interest and can even enhance wayfinding with their subtle directionality. “It’s not like you are confronted with a single, full layer of color—that would be a little obstructive,” observes Erwan. “It’s more like what you would see when you are outside.... It’s a pattern that has a little life inside, thanks to the software.” M

courtesy Studio Bouroullec

The new collection lends a “stained glass” effect to interiors.

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Brian Tolman has helped Convene leverage hospitality metrics for the workplace.

courtesy convene

Opposite: a Convene location in Chicago

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Brian Tolman

Hot List

Convene’s senior vice president of design and construction is powering the company’s expansion through finely tuned creative strategies and feedback systems.

By Dora Vanette

I

n 2019, the workspace design and service company Convene is slated to open about 20 new locations and four extensions, totaling approximately a million square feet of meeting, event, and coworking space. This feat, which more than doubles Convene’s portfolio, would strike fear in the most seasoned of designers. Brian Tolman, Convene’s senior vice president of design and construction, hardly bats an eye. In the six years that he has worked with Convene, beginning as an outside consultant whose firm was later folded into the company, Tolman has honed a nearly foolproof method for designing, executing, and assessing each project that comes his way.

For Tolman, the strategy lies in not expending his team’s energy on elements that can be systematized and repeated across Convene’s locations. “The room should function exactly the same way every time– the light fixture should give the same quality of light, the conference table should perform the way you expect it to,” Tolman explains. “Once we’ve made sure those basics are perfectly executed and standardized, we can focus on the storytelling and the nuances of the spaces in between.” Having developed the system that underlies the design process, Tolman’s in-house team of 25 can work on setting the tone and narrative of the offices, while doing much of the development in collaboration with outside design partners.

Convene’s rapid growth would not have been possible without a set of highly sophisticated input systems, including consumer research, occupancy sensors, and customer feedback. “We lean heavily on

metrics such as Net Promoter Scores (NPS), which tell us how likely customers are to recommend our products and whether they plan on returning to our spaces,” Tolman says. “This type of feedback doesn’t tell us how to solve a problem, if one exists, but it flags an opportunity for us to improve the experience.”

Whether Convene’s assessment strategies draw the designers’ attention to which conference room is reserved last or to the fact that users of an event space prefer to dispense with the provided seating, they provide valuable lessons that can be carried through to future projects. At the same time, having access to an in-house design team gives Convene the unique ability to redesign its spaces almost in real time.

Yet strict adherence to metrics runs the risk of fostering uniformity. For Tolman, each location should tell a different story and offer a unique experience— a quality that sets Convene apart from brands such as Starbucks. “Starbucks made the decision to come up with a series of devices and aesthetics that can be executed across all of their spaces,” Tolman explains.

“This approach is fast and easy and allows for rapid growth. But then, when’s the last time you were surprised by a Starbucks?” Instead, Tolman believes, people remain loyal to Convene precisely because of the element of surprise. “It’s similar to having a favorite chef who is opening a new restaurant—you’re going to want to check it out,” he notes. “You know the food and the experience are not going to be the same, but what you do know is that it’s going to be good.

That’s exactly the kind of loyalty we’re trying to create with our workspaces at Convene.” M 2019

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As a design director at Gensler Atlanta, Meena Krenek has led the development of the office’s new creative incubator space. “It’s all about bringing back a sense of wonder into the workplace,” she says.

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Meena Krenek

At Gensler Atlanta’s incubator space, the design director has used the creative process to build a workplace community.

By Dora Vanette Photography by Andrew Thomas Lee

F

or Meena Krenek, a design director at Gensler Atlanta, creating a workplace means drafting not only a space’s physical qualities but also its emotional resonance.

At Gensler’s new incubator, a recent expansion at the firm’s collaboration-focused office in midtown Atlanta, the experience begins with a peephole and sliding panel built into a nondescript metal door. This small-scale design intervention, which gives the visitor a glimpse into the office space beyond, is meant to set the stage for the creative

process that happens inside. “It’s an exciting challenge to design a playful quirk that users can interact with,” Krenek says. “It’s all about bringing back a sense of wonder into the workplace.” From speechbubble neon signs to quotes on stair treads, Krenek sprinkles her spaces with similar details to spark curiosity in visitors—and maybe inspire them to share on social media.

Instagrammable moments aside, Krenek is careful not to lose sight of her main imperative to foster meaningful work. Guided by Gensler’s Workplace 2019

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The incubator space changes frequently, incorporating mock-ups and test areas for products— like the Rockwell Unscripted collection for Knoll (right)—and layouts, like a sit-stand zone with writable walls (bottom right).

Performance Index, a pre- and post-occupancy survey tool that the firm developed to gain insight into employee needs, Krenek is dedicated to designing spaces that support a broad range of work styles.

Flexibility and mobility form the backbone of her approach. In designing the Shaw Create Centre, a think tank for the company’s design, marketing, and innovation teams in rural Cartersville, Georgia, Krenek translated these principles into a series of venues within the Shaw office space, from cozy nooks for focused work and phone calls to airy, open spaces that encourage collaboration and social interaction.

Movable furniture, screens, and tackable surfaces allow for seamless shifting between the two.

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In her work, Krenek uses design to give employees a sense of permanence and stability—a quality often lacking in contemporary workspaces. Unlike “free address” offices, where employees typically have to clean their desks and store personal materials at the end of the day, at the incubator, Krenek has created an environment that encourages people to leave their work up on the pinup and writable walls. “It’s almost like an old-time war room,” Krenek notes. “You can come in the next day and see the patterns. It gives you an opportunity to really simmer on an idea.”

Krenek’s humanistic approach to the workplace reflects an industry-wide trend, as workplaces leave behind pure utility in favor of fostering a sense of social destination. So, whether she is designing a place for clients to visit and become “a part of the messy,” as in the case of Gensler’s incubator, or to attract new talent, as at Shaw’s campus, Krenek finds it her

The space is designed to reflect the iterative processes happening within it, with an unfinished, in-flux look that combines multiple usable surfaces and collaborative areas.

“It gives you an opportunity to really simmer on an idea,” says Krenek.

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responsibility to create a connection between people and spaces.

“What an office today does is bring people with aligned values together,” Krenek explains. For her, the designer’s task is to uncover and highlight the authentic culture of an organization. “At a very basic level, what people crave is community, connection, and a sense of belonging,” she says. “If we don’t provide this in our designs, we are not doing justice to the people who spend their time in these spaces.” M

courtesy Connie Zhou

The same spirit of creative input invigorates Krenek’s design for the Shaw Create Centre, which incorporates movable furniture, screens, and tackable surfaces.

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NATE & N AT T Y BLENDING STYLE WITH COMFORT AND VERSATILITY

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™

KIMBALL.COM

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WORK YOUR WAY

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Wellness There is no doubt that in the past five years, health and well-being have become powerful drivers for design. Now we need to ask, What kind of health, and whose well-being? Current understanding of mental health puts it at the core of debates about user experience, while long-standing concerns around sustainability and inclusivity are taking new forms. Here are some emerging perspectives on wellness for mind, body, and planet.

courtesy Edward Wonsek

Bridge Boston Charter School, completed by HMFH Architects in 2017, was designed to support the emotional and mental well-being of students and their families (page 68).

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Wellness: Mind

A Bridge Farther

A new home base for a school in Boston supports students’ well-being both in and out of the classroom.

By James McCown

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Resiliency was developed to address bullying, substance abuse, and student anxiety and depression.

The newly reimagined building’s bright, upbeat spaces make for a fertile backdrop in this effort.

It wasn’t easy getting to this point. Principal Jennifer Daly remembers opening the school in 2011 in rented space in a Baptist church. “We were in one room with a single light switch,” she

recalls. Another lackluster space followed. But in 2014, a real estate agent took her to see a shuttered community health center that seemed to hold some potential as a permanent home for the school.

HMFH Architects of Boston, in a $25 million project, transformed the building by adding space, constructing a gymnasium and a playground, and most of all, renovating an existing atrium

courtesy Edward Wonsek

“A

modern plan is successful only when it embraces every human need,” wrote architecture critic Lewis Mumford in The Culture of Cities in 1938. Nowhere is this truer than in elementary education. Take Bridge Boston Charter School (BBCS) in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood, completed by HMFH Architects in 2017. A substantial percentage of the pre-K–8 school’s 335 students are from families that are homeless or facing challenges such as alcoholism or addiction. A newly renovated home for BBCS provides the equipment for academic success, engenders neighborhood pride, and in so doing helps fulfill the school’s mission: “to remove the health and social obstacles that hinder student learning.”

Significantly, both physical and mental wellness are embedded in the school’s programs and the building’s design. In addition to free, healthy meals and physical education—with the requisite kitchen and gym facilities—the Program in Education Afterschool and Specify

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In 2017, Bridge Boston Charter School (BBCS) moved into a new home (opposite) renovated by HMFH Architects. The project’s design elements—like a lightfilled atrium that serves as a community space (this page)—support and nurture children’s social and emotional well-being as well as academic and creative development.

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that would become the heart and soul of the school. “The existing building was a Brutalist bunker broken up into small clinical spaces,” says Laura Wernick, senior principal at HMFH. “The challenge was opening it up and making it warm and welcoming for students in the most vulnerable situations.”

The most impactful part of the project, Daly explains, was the architects’ efforts “to give the building a center.” The atrium also serves as a library and meeting place. Notches in the balconies are filled in with glass, encouraging 70

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students to wave across the lighted expanse. Catwalks connect the brick core to the rest of the building—a fact not lost on the students, staff, or architects.

“We’ve got actual bridges to match the metaphorical bridges,” says Wernick.

In the new space, not only are physical and mental needs addressed, but the arts and science programs can thrive as well. Through grants, BBCS has acquired equipment to stock its new large STEM classroom spaces. And an acoustically tuned music room accommo-

dates a program unique to the school: All students receive string instruments. The top floor is dedicated to an art studio. Although classes run standard hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., the building also facilitates nighttime use by families facing challenges at home, who often gather in the atrium in the evenings for meetings and fellowship.

“All of us are really focused on the families’ strengths,” Daly says.

“That we can all gather in a well-lit space filled with books is just like ice cream on a Sunday.” M

courtesy Edward Wonsek

The atrium at BBCS serves as a gathering place for students and family members alike—even after hours.

It also gives the project a “center,” as Jennifer Daly, school principal at BBCS, points out.

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110°

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5/15/19 11:44 AM

Wellness: Ecology

Selecting Well Designers consider the holistic systems and cycles of the products they specify.

By Joseph P. Sgambati III

The nine products on these pages represent selections by Bethany Borel from COOKFOX Architects and Robert Atkinson, Tanya Davis, and Steven South from IA Interior Architects.

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courtesy the designers and manufacturers

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he way we think about wellness is changing.

Designers are looking beyond the health of building occupants to that of everyone involved in the cycle of production, transportation, installation, demolition, and what comes after. Similarly, we’re concerned not just with indoor air quality and toxins but also movement and interaction as daily rituals—in short, our happiness, not just our safety. The environment is also central to this expanding definition of wellness: What’s good for the planet is good for us.

We asked specifiers at COOKFOX Architects and IA Interior Architects—two firms with reputations for designing for wellbeing and sustainability—for examples of products they turn to in support of wellness at work.

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1 KVADRAT Divina The textile boasts six environmental achievements in material composition that include GREENGUARD Gold and LBC Red List compliance. maharam.com kvadrat.com

4 UPOFLOOR Upofloor Zero Enomer®, the material used in this flooring, is free from six common toxins affecting indoor air quality, helping it reach M1, the most stringent emissions class. upofloor.com

2 INTERFACE Visual Code This collection is made with 100 percent recycled-content nylon, is treated with EPA-approved preservatives for longevity, and has achieved Green Label Plus status. interface.com

5 WATSON FURNITURE Tia Part recycled, part recyclable, this office system marries environmental health with the ergonomics of a standing desk, promoting movement throughout the day. watsonfurniture.com

3 STICKBULB Bough Elegance meets eco-minded design: Made in New York City, these lamps are built from reclaimed and sustainably sourced wood. stickbulb.com

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Wellness: Ecology 6 MUSHLUME Trumpet Pendant This biofabricated pendant light is grown from mushroom mycelium and is completely biodegradable. flowandchaos.com 7 GEIGER Brabo Lounge Craftsmanship, material transparency, and sustainable practices elevate this collection above industry standards, attaining Indoor Advantage™ Gold certification. hermanmiller.com geigerfurniture.com

8 BAUX Acoustic Wood Wool Panels Responsibly sourced wood fibers make up the “wool” woven into these panels, which are moisture resistant, fire retardant, and recyclable. baux.se

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9 BENTLEY MILLS Wanderlust This Cradle to Cradle Silver carpet tile takes the hazards out of its fibers, backing, and adhesives to protect installers and occupants alike. bentleymills.com

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imagine a place where welding is core curriculum Jake master’s student empathic designer shop geek ofs.com

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Wellness: Body

Rachel Gutter, CEO of the International WELL Building Institute, talks to Metropolis about WELL v2 and making the standard’s Movement category more inclusive.

By Avinash Rajagopal

Avinash Rajagopal: Can you talk about what’s new with WELL v2 [the 2018 update to the human health and well-being certification system], especially with regard to fitness and movement?

Rachel Gutter: Increasingly, we understand that our buildings can be vessels for public health outcomes. We wanted to make a number of fundamental changes from the first version of WELL that would make the system more equitable and more accessible as well as affordable, and that would address the fact that [best practices for] health are not one-size-fits-all.

Physical activity was a place where that came up a lot. In the lead-up to launching WELL v2, we held nine roundtables across the globe and what we heard were really different attitudes 76

and approaches to physical activity. For example, the folks in Australia said: “We don’t need gyms. The weather here is always perfect. You guys use gyms; we go outside. Talking about subsidies for gym memberships doesn’t seem as relevant to us as sponsoring our intramural football team.” We tried to revisit the Movement category within WELL [one of ten such concepts in the certification system] to address not just a diverse set of needs but also a different set of traditions and desires about how you get your physical activity.

AR: Sometimes people talk about fitness from an abled perspective, but as we know, workplaces have to be not only accommodating but nurturing and supportive of people of all abilities.

top to bottom: courtesy Kai Keane; courtesy International WELL Building Institute; opposite: courtesy International WELL Building Institute

Redefining Fitness

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Opposite: Rachel Gutter was instrumental in shaping WELL v2; MNP Tower, a WELL Certified Gold project in Vancouver, offers tenants amenities like a rock-climbing wall.

This page: Mirvac’s headquarters in New South Wales, Australia, is a WELL Certified Gold space.

In WELL v2, Gutter says, “we focused a lot more on ergonomics and on building designs like central staircases.”

RG: We changed the concept name from Fitness to Movement to really stress that attitude of inclusivity. There’s a massive uptick in focus in WELL v2 on accessibility and universal design. We thought about various aspects of accessibility, going beyond the bathrooms and entryways to think about helping people navigate through spaces. Also, things like making sure that someone with disabilities could, for instance, open the windows—I believe that actually shows up in our light concept. These aspects of universal design and inclusive design are peppered in throughout the entire standard.

We also thought of the operators of the building, who often work in the worst conditions, sitting in the basement all day with the worst acoustics, with poor ergonomics and lighting. Like

people with disabilities, they’re a good example of those who have been forgotten in the design of our spaces or whom we haven’t fully accounted for and considered.

We cared a lot in WELL v2 that we didn’t leave anyone out of the calculation. I think that the same could be said for those who have any kind of ability. We tried to think about how to make an environment inclusive and welcoming, but also how to encourage their movement throughout the day in a safe way.

AR: What is the relationship between corporate policy, organizational culture, and interior design when it comes to wellness?

RG: I was just with the chief mindfulness officer for a Fortune Ten company and he said:

“Everybody keeps congratulating me on getting meditation rooms in all of our offices throughout the world. But those meditation rooms are almost always empty.” What we know intuitively is that without a culture of health and well-being in the workplace, many of the things that are called for in WELL features won’t ultimately be effective. The good news is that there are lots of things in WELL that nobody has to opt into. Nobody has to opt into better air quality, improved acoustics, better water. The most successful organizations that pursue WELL succeed because they utilize WELL as a framework for driving toward a culture of health and wellbeing, and prizing the employees’ health as an indicator of the business’s overall success. M 2019

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Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Upali Nanda often travels to the HKS Design Lab in Dallas (pictured), where she investigates the connections between the built environment and human health.

Opposite: A 3D printer at the HKS Design Lab creates a prototype for its Brain + Building initiative.

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Hot List

Upali Nanda

HKS’s principal and director of research blends science with design to support human health and wellness through the built environment.

By Kadie Yale Photography by Antonio Chicaia

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pali Nanda is someone who can make you fall in love with science just by speaking with her. Words like bias, systemic, and ecosystem become supercharged as the principal and director of research at HKS describes her work in excited tones. She is someone who never tires of asking why and waiting for the results.

Nanda didn’t expect to spend her career researching the impact of design, particularly health-care

design, but it was serendipitous that her passions converged. “Since my bachelor’s [in architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi], one of the things I have been fascinated by is human perception,” she explains. While she was focusing on this blend of research and architecture through her PhD from Texas A&M University, things seemed to fall into place at the exact right time. “I stumbled upon this field the [design] industry was just becoming awake to.”

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From top: the Sensory Cocoon at the Sensory Wellbeing Hub, which recently traveled to SXSW 2019; a model created for a proposal to bring Amazon’s HQ2 to Dallas; a 3D-printed mock-up for a project at the HKS Design Lab

“Architecture and design have a clear, meaningful, measurable outcome on health and well-being,” she says. “More and more evidence was emerging at that time that made that case.”

Nanda was able to prove this connection at the beginning of her career when she found that exposure to art decreased the amount of anxiety medication that psychiatric patients needed. Finding such a correlation helped form the basis for Nanda’s current thinking about how design can be used to positively change the world. “There are so many systemic issues we [designers] touch,” she says. “We have a direct impact on environment, occupants, and society.”

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Hot List

The researchers contributing to the HKS Design Lab include (clockwise from top left) Casey Lindberg, senior design researcher; Melissa Hoelting, design researcher and coordinator; Jonathan Essary, lab researcher; Giyoung Park, senior design researcher, and Nanda.

In her view, this insight can drive design at all scales: “Think about design as a continuum that goes from information and product design to interiors to architecture to neighborhoods to urban design to city design to policy design. As long as we think in this framework, we want to get all kinds of designers together to solve for systemic problems and ecosystems.”

One process that has evolved from this viewpoint is what Nanda calls point-of-decision design (PODD), predicated on the question “If I only have a limited amount of funding, where should I invest so that people can make better decisions about their health?” For example, in trying to get employees to

be healthier during their workday, rather than invest in numerous health-related initiatives, a client can add a staircase to an interior that makes it easier to walk than take the elevator. With PODD, one looks for solutions that will allow the easiest choice to also be the healthiest choice.

As for the future of design, Nanda says that increasingly, we will be experimenting in “living labs” rather than relying on pre- and post-occupancy reports. Living labs integrate technology to measure the impact of design in real time, so designers, clients, and users can all make more informed choices.

Predicts Nanda: “Environments will be a constant conversation between building and humans.” M 2019

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Seth and Melissa Hanley founded Studio Blitz, a multidisciplinary firm based in California, in 2009.

this page: Courtesy ramin rahimian; opposite: Courtesy aubrie pick

Opposite: Blitz designed a showroom for Parachute Home, a direct-to-consumer bedding company, in an existing 1,250square-foot retail space in San Francisco.

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Hot List

Studio Blitz

With the Great Recession as a catalyst, Melissa and Seth Hanley defined a design practice that addresses the larger why.

By Kadie Yale

“T

he thing about starting during a recession is that there’s nothing to lose,” quips Melissa Hanley, principal, cofounder, and CEO of Studio Blitz, the multidisciplinary firm she launched in 2009 with her spouse, Seth Hanley. Amid mass layoffs at the firm they were working for, the Hanleys looked to the new wave of start-ups emerging in San Francisco and Silicon Valley for inspiration. Ever since, Blitz has evolved with this environment, carving out a niche in tech-sectorfocused workplace design.

Melissa says founding their own practice during such a turbulent time “was really about hustling,” a mindset that matched that of their entrepreneurial clientele. The rocky terrain of the Great Recession— and the stresses involved in starting a business—didn’t hinder their creative drive: “If we ended up failing and living in a tent in my parents’ front yard, it’s a really nice yard,” she laughs.

In those early years, Blitz began to navigate a new normal in the design world: working on specific office interiors as separate entities from the offices around them, rather than designing the building as a whole.

The scale allowed Blitz to test ideas more quickly than if it had been working on an entire structure. More often than not, its clients wanted to be intimately involved in the details. The experience has been invaluable.

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courtesy emily hagopian

For digital security company Marqeta, Blitz created a 48,000-squarefoot office in Oakland, California, using natural wood, a chevron motif, and a rich, saturated palette to create spaces for a variety of work styles.

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Upgrade’s new San Francisco headquarters, spread over 32,000 square feet, uses a bright color scheme to differentiate activity zones and guide circulation. A spiral staircase, shown top right, lined with semitranslucent resin fins backlit by color-changing LED lights, connects the office’s two floors.

“To experiment while being your authentic self as a designer has propelled our work forward,” remarks Seth, the company’s principal and creative director.

In designing spaces for companies searching for less traditional offices, such as Google, YouTube, and global security services provider Northland Controls— the design of which won the IIDA Northern California Honor Award for medium-size offices in 2018—Blitz has tried to go deeper than the original brief. “We say, ‘If you ask someone what they want, they won’t tell you what they need,’” says Melissa. “We aim for the needs rather than the wants.”

To do so, the Blitz team has switched from asking one-answer questions (“How many workstations and conference rooms do you need?”) to open-ended ones (“What is your engagement like on a daily basis?”

“What does the workday look like?”). The responses allow Blitz to work toward creative solutions to its clients’ big-picture challenges, rather than merely providing a space for desks.

“The office as a construct is starting to lose a lot of its meaning and formality,” says Melissa. “We need to start asking questions about the purpose of coming together in one place.”

A decade after its start, Blitz has expanded to two offices, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with two dozen designers—and three dogs—in tow. And it continues to approach each project as an experiment in redefining the office experience.

“I think one of the takeaways, particularly [when] working with technology companies...is the idea that testing ideas is a natural part of the work flow,” reflects Seth. “If something fails from a design perspective, that’s OK—you learn from that and you very quickly move on to the next thing. It’s part of the reason, I think, that we’ve been able to move as quickly as we have, and to be as agile a company as we are.” M 2019

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Randy Rubin, photographed here at Crypton’s headquarters in Bloomfield, Michigan, with collections produced in collaboration with outside mills (this page and opposite)

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Randy Rubin

Hot List

The very definition of an entrepreneur, the Crypton cofounder has helped break new ground in textiles.

By Sheila Kim Photography by Jarod Lew

O

ne day in 1994, Craig and Randy Rubin found themselves in a McDonald’s test kitchen as one of its employees smeared ketchup on samples of Crypton, the couple’s newly invented performance fabric.

After wiping off the stains, the employee “looked up and said, ‘You’re going to be rich,’” Randy Rubin recalls.

In those days, vinyl and laminated fabrics were the only upholstery choices for commercial settings where spills and messes would be routine. But those options were hardly inviting to the touch, and they limited design. Crypton—a new category of uncoated stain-, water-, and odor-resistant fabrics—changed the game.

Having come from a family of inventors and a career running an upholstery business, Craig was poised for experimenting with textiles. Randy,

meanwhile, a brand strategist who’d worked for major companies like Chevrolet, possessed the marketing acumen to make their product succeed. But the couple’s beginnings were humble, starting with tests in the basement of their condo near Detroit. Eventually, they developed a formulation that permanently bonded performance attributes to polyester fibers while preserving a soft hand. They called it Crypton, a play on Superman’s Kryptonite and the couple’s initials. Next, Randy tirelessly championed their patent to the A&D community before turning to commercial prospects. McDonald’s was the first win, and Hilton Hotels, health-care facilities, and other restaurants followed.

Outside textile mills began knocking on their door as well, and today those mills produce countless 2019

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Top: Rubin pays a visit to the archives and the open-plan office.

Below: Crypton’s performance is notable, given its sustainability credentials; all products are GREENGUARD Gold Certified.

Crypton-branded textiles on an almost annual basis.

A recent example is Fabricut Contract’s Color Studio Crypton, Vol. III. Launched in March, it comprises a robust 150 SKUs in four color families. To ensure that this collection, like all the others bearing the Crypton name, meets stringent standards, the concern does not license out its technology. Mills must send in a sample for pretesting; after Crypton calibrates the formulation, the company accepts and “Cryptonizes” the fabric line in its own North Carolina plant—not the originating mill.

This control guarantees that Crypton-branded products are made in the USA—notable in an era of disappearing American fabric mills. Says Randy: “Early in our history we committed to working with American mills, and...we continue to work with and nurture the U.S. mills that have survived the influx of offshore production.”

The company’s partnerships extend to ones with individual luminaries, too. Case in point: a collabo88

ration with canine photography icon William Wegman, with whom Crypton co-created a pet-accessories line—a special win for dog lover Randy. (She jests that her 15-year-old dog Molly remains the company’s chief executive.) The brand has also teamed up with textile designer Suzanne Tick (p. 54) and the late architect Michael Graves.

All the while, Crypton has pushed the envelope and penetrated new markets. In 2002, it implemented environmentally responsible processes; all Crypton products are now GREENGUARD Gold Certified. (As the company has evolved, it has adopted a “less is more” approach to performance.) The company expanded into the home-fabric sector in 2010, acquired apparel-textile brand Nanotex in 2014, and this January launched Crypton Europe.

Driving this ongoing innovation has been a unique dialogue with the A&D community. The consumer input has led to high-performance versions of soughtafter textures like chenille and suede. Reflects Randy, “Thank God we didn’t rest on our laurels.” It’s a fitting comment for an entrepreneur who built a trailblazing business from the basement up. M

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In the office’s product development area, Rubin shows off the breadth of Crypton’s distributor collections.

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Showroom Listings

Metropolis Must See Visit these showrooms to see innovative product offerings or participate in exciting events hosted by Metropolis’s partners.

FLOOR 3

Dauphin

Suite 393 dauphin.com p. 53

Davis Furniture Industries, Inc.

— June 10, 4–6 p.m.: Davis Furniture 75th Anniversary Champagne Celebration Suite 3-115 davisfurniture.com p. 31

Haworth

Suite 312 haworth.com p. 17

HBF & HBF Textiles

— June 10, 3–5 p.m.: Join us for a glass of prosecco Suite 387 hbf.com, hbftextiles.com p. 23

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Humanscale

Tarkett Brands

Mohawk Group

FLOOR 7

— June 10, 4–5 p.m.: Public Meet and Greet with Don Chadwick — June 11, 1–2 p.m.: Net Positive Materials: The Future of Sustainability, Floor 6 Suite 351 humanscale.com p. 9 Suite 377 mohawkgroup.com p. 51

Nienkämper

Suite 365 nienkamper.com Inside Front Cover, p. 1

Suite 380 — June 10, 3–6 p.m.: Together by Design — June 11, 8 a.m.: Inspirations Awards — June 11, 1–3 p.m.: Bloody Mary Bar tarkett.com Inside Back Cover

BIFMA

Booth 7-10046 bifma.org p. 71

Connectrac

Booth 7-10050 connectrac.com p. 45

DuPont Tedlar Booth 7-4014 dupont.com p. 39

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Formaspace LP

— June 10, 3–5 p.m.: Drinks with Formaspace — June 11, 2–5 p.m.: Drinks with Formaspace Booth 7-7062 formaspace.com p. 71

Karndean Designflooring Booth 7-8116 karndean.com p. 71

Meadows Workflow Booth 7-4134 meadowsworkflow.com p. 71

Wexel Art

— June 11, 10 a.m.: Tips for Creating Branding Walls That Are Creative & Impactful in Corporate Offices Booth 7-1079 wexelart.com pp. 10, 71 FLOOR 10

Bentley

— June 10, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.: Lunch @ Bentley Kinzie Showroom — June 10, 3–6 p.m.: Cocktail Party @ Bentley Kinzie Showroom — June 11, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Lunch @ Bentley Kinzie Showroom Suite 1098 220 W. Kinzie Street, Suite 200 bentleymills.com p. 41

Patcraft

Suite 10-160 patcraft.com p. 35

Teknion

— June 10, 4:30–6:30 p.m.: Cocktail Reception — June 11, 9:30–10:30 a.m.: The New Face of Collaboration in the Tech Enabled Office, Room 7C, CEU Suite 1048 teknion.com pp. 2, 3

Versteel

Suite 1093 versteel.com pp. 4, 5

SitOnIt Seating

— June 10, 4:30–7 p.m.: Party at the Old Crow Smokehouse Suite 1150 sitonit.net p. 27 OUTSIDE THE MART

Blu Dot

— June 11, 3–5 p.m., Blu Dot + Forward Space Party, The Mart, Suite 614 1953 North Clybourn Avenue bludot.com p. 21

Kimball

KI

Suite 1181 ki.com Back Cover

— June 10, 3–4 p.m.: Designer Meet and Greet with Claudio Bellini, Brian Graham and pL-D Design 325 North Wells Street, Suite 100 kimball.com p. 66

Momentum Group

Knoll Textiles

FLOOR 11

Suite 11-106 memosamples.com p. 19

OFS

Suite 1132 ofsbrands.com p. 75

— June 10, 12 p.m.: Channeling Total Design — June 10, 2 p.m.: From Yarn Bombing to Total Design of Place 811 West Fulton Market knoll.com p. 7

National Office

325 North Wells Street, Suite 110 nationalofficefurniture.com p. 11

Room & Board

55 East Ohio Street roomandboard.com p. 13

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courtesy Herman Miller Archives

It would be a breakthrough for us desk jockeys if sitting all day could actually be a workout.

Herman Miller’s winking 1979 poster for the Ergon chair offered tips for living your best (desk) life, including “Tiptoe while seated, using the chair’s rocking motion.” When Ergon debuted in 1976, its design for active and varying postures changed how we sit and what we expect for our wellbeing at the office.

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5/15/19 7:33 AM

Tatami System Broadloom Reimagined A revolutionary flooring product inspired by traditional Japanese floor covering, Tatami supports the ever-changing spaces of the modern workplace. Combine any of the four sizes to build flexible configurations that meet the needs of your workspace — today and tomorrow. TarkettNA.com

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5/14/19 3:06 PM 5/15/19 6:22 AM

Great design is about building a sense of community.

Creating spaces that forge connections & foster a sense of belonging. Join us at NeoCon to:

share ideas

find inspiration listen

eat

be heard

drink Join our party!

Monday, June 10th @ 4pm

Find the common threads that connect you to others in the KI showroom.

Let’s get together, by design.

Showroom #1181, 11th Floor ki.com/neocon

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