A collaboration between architects at HLW and veteran designer Carl Gustav Magnusson has yielded a modern masterpiece for Cherryman Industries’ new idesk seating products.
As executive vice president of innovation at Cherryman, Magnusson designed the new product line, recruiting five other designers from around the globe. Simultaneously, he worked with Stephanie Baca from HLW to create a striking series of spaces out of a 1980s defense contractor’s offices.
“I represented our company but Stephanie was the designer,” Magnusson says.
“He was a major contributor,” says Baca.
It’s successful because it’s designed to improve the lives of the firm’s employees, lighting up a formerly dark and stodgy interior. “We were able to open it up to a courtyard that’s now a cafe and a great outdoor space,” Baca says. “We brought an old building back to life – it had great bones, and we stripped away its heaviness.”
It’s designed to shed light also on the new, premium product line from Cherryman. “The ideal solution was to create a new statement for a new brand, with architecture and interiors that are up to an international standard,” Magnusson says.
For that brand Magnusson, who once worked for Charles Eames and Knoll International, brought in award-winning designs from Han Yi Huang of Taiwan, Claudio Bellini of Milan, Bartoli Design of Milan, Si Shang Design in Taiwan, and Alexandros Stasinopoulos in Athens. He also designed his own modular seating system, one he calls Umbrella.
The seating line is the first thrust of products to come into the marketplace, with all in stock and all available immediately. Soon to come: case goods, desk systems, conference tables, and lighting.
Building and products alike are attuned to a three-pronged philosophy of design. “I believe that modern design can change people’s lives for the better in a workspace where they spend half their lives, and that good design at a competitive price is not a contradiction,” he says. “And getting it today only adds to the business environment.”
For architects with ever-shortening lead times, that means a lot.
For more, go here http://ideskinc.com
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