We are very pleased to announce that our Metronome table for Nienkamper was received a Good Design Award.

THE HISTORIC GOOD DESIGN® AWARDS ANNOUNCED FOR 2011 OVER ONE THOUSAND OF THE WORLD’S LEADING MANUFACTURERS, CORPORATIONS AND DESIGN FIRMS FROM OVER 38 NATIONS GARNER THE WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS STANDARD FOR DESIGN EXCELLENCE.

The world’s best new design for 2011 is announced today by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Several thousands of leading manufacturers, corporations, industrial design offices, architects, graphic and packaging designers from over 50 nations submitted the best of their new product design to the world’s most important design program that honors worldwide design innovation, vision, sustainability, and the competitive design edge.

GOOD DESIGN® dates back to 1950 and is now the world’s largest and most distinguished design competition. The program was founded by architects Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., and annually bestows international recognition upon the world’s most promi-nent designers and manufacturers for advancing new, visionary, and innovative product concepts, invention and originality, and for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered ordinary product and consumer design.

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Chen Chi Furniture Co., Ltd. is a leading designer and manufacturer of office furniture components.  Figforty was approached to design a new arm that would broaden the application of their products for the European and North American markets.

The result is an arm with a crisp aesthetic that incorporates many of ChenChi’s internal mechanical patents to achieve a robust, smooth and intuitive operation.  It is constructed in a modular way to allow for many different arm pad adjustment modes and arm pad shapes and sizes.  A key feature is the treatment of the arms connection to the chair.  The lower bracket connection is covered by a cap available in 3 different styles.  This allows ChenChi to offer the arm to different customers with broad amount of visual differentiation.

We are very pleased to announce that our Metronome table collection for Nienkamper won a Silver Innovation award at the 2011 IIDEX/Neocon show in Toronto.  Click here to see Lee give an overview of the table with Klaus Nienkamper.

Metronome is a collection of tables built on a structural system that is sculptural, stable, and capable of a broad range of application requirements. From small meeting tables and individual desks to flip top training tables through to large scale boardroom tables and benching, Metronome is a systems driven table collection that easily responds to any working environment.

The entire seat assembly as well as the knit structure are drawn from the Omada kit of parts, and with the addition of two tubular steel frames - one for the back and one for the frame - the chair is complete.  The frame is created to allow for stacking, and the back frame is designed to not only mount the side chair frame but also the standard Omada mechanism to allow for a different back option for the Omada task chair.

The arm pads are an elastomer tube that is flush with the 1″ diametre steel tube creating a very clean arm surface while offering a resilient surface along the arms.

We are very pleased to launch this chair with Nienkamper at Neocon 2011.

The MultiNestor chair is a high density nesting chair developed for Allseating.  The chair transforms from a ‘use’ configuration to a ‘nesting’ configuration by lifting the seat, drawing it forward and then lowering it to the forward angled position.  The chairs are on casters and once the seat is stowed another chair can be nested with it.

Consistent with the MultiFlex line, the back flexes to accommodate a users movement and create a more comfortable chair. Flexibility comes in a back that moves and flexes with the user.

Metronome is a collection of tables built on a structural system that is sculptural, stable, and capable of a broad range of application requirements.  From small meeting tables and individual desks to flip top training tables through to large scale boardroom tables and benching, Metronome is a systems driven table collection that easily responds to any working environment.

The name Metronome comes from the idea of keeping time, keeping pace with what’s going on in the working environment.  Whether it is meeting and boardroom tables, small meeting tables and partners desks, or storable training tables, the system shares components at every level allowing not only the creation of these varied applications but also a very high degree of reconfigurability allowing an organization to move and evolve without rendering the furniture obsolete.

The frame is inspired by the sculptural results of natural structural forms often found in large buildings, where form is defined by requirements of mass and gravity combining to create balanced and beautiful structures.  This approach gives the table it’s visual and structural character.  The creation of intelligent connectors linking tubes achieves this end in a very efficient way.  Aluminum is the only material used in the frame ensuring a high degree of recycled content, and a complete opportunity for full recyclability for all elements.

Awards:

2011 GOOD DESIGN

NeoCON\IIDEX 2011: Silver

Soon to be released are a new mechanism which enables different arm options, further diversifying the chairs application as general use task and guest seating.

For more information contact Allseating.

Each pair of goggles ships with 3 different sizes of nose bridges, however there was still over 15% of users that found even the largest bridge either too narrow or shallow, often cutting into the wearers nose between the eyes.

We worked with Sable to reverse engineer the existing bridge and created a series of new sizes varying in both depth and width.  These were then prototyped, installed on goggles and used and evaluated with a variety of users.

Through this evaluation the right mix of depth and width was determined.  Tooling then began on the additional bridge size.  Now each pair of goggles comes with 4 instead of 3 different bridges to ensure the best fit for widest range of facial structures.

“IIDEX/NeoCon Canada is Canada’s largest annual trade show and conference for the design, construction and management of the built environment.  IIDEX has been owned by ARIDO, Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario since 1984 and managed by MMPI Canada since 1998.  The show attracts 400 exhibitors in all areas of design — workplace, healthcare, hospitality, retail, sustainable, residential, architectural and lighting as well as 15,000 attendees — interior designers, architects, facility managers, developers and business professionals from across Canada and the bordering states.”

For more information on Omada, follow the link.

The main intent of the presentation is to dig into the multi faceted activity of designing the objects that find themselves in the environments we live and work in. This course offers a new look at objects and discusses the broader issues surrounding them through a review of the design and development of an award winning chair and a rain water harvesting device.

The overall goal is to better equip interior designers with a deeper understanding of the products they specify, allowing them to make more informed choices for their clients.

For more information about the course contact Linda Nabulsi.

Terence’s latest (September 2011) CEU is here.

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