Kimball

The project that our studio began a few weeks ago has had me in a conceptual rut. I'm not used to designing office spaces, and was actually a little disappointed when I was placed in this corporate office studio for the semester. What is there to do with workstations to make them more appealing? I thought to myself. Furniture companies will come up with grand ideas for ways to configure these work stations and office pieces, but more often than not, these people are not interior designers. They may know how work gets done in an office most efficiently and how to space plan like a god, but if they were truly designers, they would know that we have needs, too. Designers do not enjoy being given something that they cannot alter themselves.

For instance, this project is sponsored by Kimball Office. The designers at Kimball want us to create a space using their Priority and Villa collections. I believe the company as a whole is moving in a good direction in terms of style of the furniture. However, the majority of Priority's collection (other than what they call "progressive benching") is a jumble of typical corner office desk units that you would see in the most bland offices around. The first architectural design office I worked in was a small firm of maybe 15 people in a small building in downtown Falls Church, Virginia. The office itself was homely in the sense that it almost didn't seem like an office, which in turn made me less inclined to do work. I was hired as a temp to do administrative duties, so I was stuck in a back office that I shared with the queen Marianne who knew how to do everything that involved everything in the firm. The corner desk was the same that I remember my mom's office having for all of my childhood visits on bring-your-child-to-work-day (aka old and outdated).

An office is somewhere that I'd want to be stimulated by visuals and inspired to do awesome work. Sitting in a desk that is similar to the style my mom has been in her entire life as a secretary is not inspiring. How am I supposed to be inspired to make the world a better place through my work if the environment in which I'm sitting has not been improved in years?

I'm aware that most furniture is made entirely based on efficiency and not aesthetics, but I can't help but think there's a way to integrate the two. Through the use of the progressive benching collection on the Kimball website, you can build and configure workstations as you please. Differing widths, lengths, and heights allow for versatility and customization between workers. Using this as a base for designing the rest of the space, I tried to work it into my original concept.

What was my original concept? I have to revert back to the first week...