I recently had a chance to catch up with Shawn Green, Vice President of Design, Product Marketing and Pallas Textiles at KI to learn what it’s dreaming up for us at NeoCon this year.
Bob Beck (BB): If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with a bit of follow up on what has happened to the products you launched last year. What’s up with Dōni Seating, designed by my good friend Giancarlo Piretti.
Shawn Green (SG): The Dōni Seating Collection celebrates color and comfort. The goal was to create a comprehensive seating solution that would offer endless design freedom and superior comfort. The result is an articulating chair that delivers exceptional comfort and unlimited design opportunities. As you know, Giancarlo Piretti has been designing articulating and stacking chairs for KI for decades now and we think Dōni is his masterwork. It has the fluid appearance of a single-piece shell, but is actually a two-piece shell with hip-articulation and body-conforming curves. Dōni’s simple mechanism provides 17-degrees of backrest articulation and movement throughout the day.
We were able to achieve this combination of articulation with a huge number of standard color options using a sophisticated two-shot injection molding process. KI is the only manufacturer in the United States to offer this two-shot process. This results in a fused single piece with two colors, which significantly increases color and design options and we’ve taken it a step further by offering custom colors for larger orders.
So at NeoCon last year we unveiled the chair with it’s articulating back and an indication of where we were heading with the collection. This year we’ll be there with the full family, including tandem seating and some exciting base and finish option. From the reaction we’ve had so far, we know this is going to be our next huge product for classroom applications. Especially in combination with the Pirouette Table, also designed by Giancarlo Piretti.
BB: Last year you were awarded a Best of NeoCon Gold for the Evoke Architectural Wall system as an alternative to drywall interior construction. How has it been accepted and what’s new with it.
SG: Evoke is doing very well. We just won a major, major project with Evoke and the key to that win was changing the paradigm around the walls. Normally when contract furniture manufacturers produce walls, they have a tendency to build-in a lot of attributes that are associated with panel systems. So in essence they’re making a tall panel going floor to ceiling and then finding clever ways to block sound or to increase the sound transmission coefficient.
We took a step back and said the key here is that people don’t walk into a building and say, ‘Wow, that’s some great-looking drywall.’ If walls are done well, they really should be passive elements within a space, I think a lot of the pushback we heard with some of our legacy products about base conditions being thick or corner conditions and so forth, was because architects were wishing and hoping that the modular walls could be modular but look like stick-built construction. And I think that’s what we’ve done through our Evoke platform approach with our unitized construction and our design focus on creating a passive visual. Then we extended that thinking to Lightline, our storefront solution. Evoke and Lightline together give the wonderful look, the simple beauty of a stick-built aesthetic, without compromising the utility or functionality.
We think Evoke is a new paradigm in movable wall and permanent construction. It is more adaptable, seamless, movable, affordable, and creates quieter spaces than any wall system before it. It renders drywall virtually obsolete. Evoke installs quickly and easily. It can be painted and accessorized on site. We also offer inkjet printing on Evoke panels to feature unlimited textures, finishes or custom graphics.
This year we’ll be introducing a clerestory option to Evoke. A glass transom, the clerestory option brings natural light into the space while maintaining visual and acoustic privacy. Evoke uses ½” glazing to maintain its best-in-class STC value. It upholds the nearly seamless aesthetic we achieved with Evoke by using a seamless vertical mullion.
For Lightline we’re introducing a freeform option, a new way to create faceted curves and angles. Freeform Lightline allows for angles ranging from 90-180 degrees using standard panels and a clear rigid dry-seal connection while maintaining vertical panel height adjustability. Lightline offers a seamless glass architectural wall solution with passive, light construction to support natural daylighting. Lightline integrates both freestanding furniture and permanent construction to unify space and provide an attractive aesthetic throughout a variety of environments.
BB: Ok. That all sounds good, but now on to what’s entirely new.
SG: We’re incredibly keen now on understanding what we’ve been calling ‘third space.’ By that we refer to the ancillary spaces such as the lobby lounge areas or the café spaces that have been secondary and tertiary from a work process standpoint. Recently, however, we’ve seen them evolve into first space or primary space in terms of how people really want to work, learn, live, congregate and so forth. So we are introducing a new concept called My Place. It’s an amalgamation of softer seating elements like big ottomans and geometric shapes that you’re starting to see in libraries and airport spaces and so forth. We’re combining that with space division elements and stepping into a category that we feel weds sort of the systems mentality with the third space lounge attributes to create a new way of looking at third space.
The old ways of looking at work process and planning for space aren’t really being embraced today. In the past companies would try to drive an ROI, looking at the dollars per white-collar worker, and trying to maximize the density – trying to really leverage the real estate. But space is much more fluid now as jobs become less task-specific and rely more on creativity and interaction with other employees. So we have to create products that are going to bridge that gap and allow for and embrace that level of flexibility.
My Place allows you to work, relax, learn, focus, socialize, and collaborate in environments tailored to your needs. It offers power at your fingertips, providing power throughout an entire lounge area. Varying panel heights create levels of privacy and space differentiation. 48” panels can be used to divide space without inhibiting communication; 64” high panels increase privacy levels. MyPlace creates functional spaces anywhere, within offices, classrooms, public spaces and lounges. And that’s what our showroom is going to be about this year, the entire space is going to be about creating higher levels of engagement, higher levels of interaction, but still providing areas within the space where you can go to relax or focus as you need at any particular time.
BB: Anything else you’d like to mention?
SG: Well I could go on and on, but I think that covers most of it. I would mention that the showroom will feature a lot of the work we’ve been doing around surface materials and finishes, especially in the Pallas Textile arena. We think people will be very pleased with the new textiles and finish options and we’re excited to feature them in the design of the showroom.
We’ll also debut a host of enhancements to our Connection Zone collection, including Café height teaming tables, frameless privacy screens to offer a lighter aesthetic and open sight lines, privacy screens that provide heightened privacy and also support shelves and cubbies, benching bases featuring telescoping beams for expansion or compression, mobile screens with magnetic steel inserts, optional bulletin boards, and tackable fabric inserts.
BB: Tell Dick Resch I look forward to his usual friendly greeting at the front of the showroom. I’ll see you in Chicago in two weeks!