Opera Aperto, or “The Open Work.” In it, Eco argues that art forms such as literary texts, musical compositions and many others exist best as fields or ranges of meaning, “open forms,” rather than completely finished “closed forms.” Artistic expression, whether in literature, music, sculpture or whatever that limits one’s understanding to a single unequivocal thought or conclusion (closed form) is not as rewarding as one that allows the perceiver of the work to actively engage in giving meaning to the work (open work). Think fugue vs. jazz.
Four years ago, upon reading Eco’s The Open Work, Koray Malhan, chief designer for the Turkish office furniture manufacturer, Koleksiyon, came to believe that Eco’s concept of openness applied in a fundamental way to the art of furniture design. In an interview this past week at the opening of a new showroom in Dallas, TX, he told me, “I had been searching for a philosophical foundation for our design in the 21st century when I read Opera Aperto. I thought about what his ideas mean to music and poetry and cinema, looking at the structure of works in those arts, and then I came back to furniture design, asking myself how much of this theory applies to design today. And I thought, ‘not so much.’
“Most design pieces are finished and closed and then given to architects and designers, who are already creative people, for them to use. They can just put pieces next to one another, workstations one after the other, but this is not really an open form of creation, so we are not really playing jazz, we are playing classical music and not music for the 21st century.
“This is why we are trying to look at new designs, new forms for our company that are open forms, units that are open forms and not just modular. The way they could be composed would be open to interior designers and architects so they could change in every single project due to the layout and the needs of the project. And they could be not only composed but completely reconstructed according to the needs of the plan.”
It’s obvious there is a strong movement in contemporary workplace design toward the kind of openness Mr. Malhan describes, even to those of us who have not struggled through Eco’s Opera Aperta. The leading thinkers in commercial interior design and post occupancy studies have pretty well established as fact that “choice” (read openness) among workstation types, topologies and locations within an office lead to a more engaged, innovative and collaborative workforce.
As a foundational philosophy for office furniture product design then, openness would seem to be a perfect fit, especially since the planners are, as Mr. Malhan says, “…already creative people.” And the ultimate [end] users are happiest and most engaged and creative when given the ability to adapt their furniture to how they want to use it, rather than having to adapt to the furniture.
So let’s take a look at two of the newer products in the Koleksiyon offering and see to what extent we think they achieve the goal of being open works.
Oblivion, designed by Mr. Malhan himself, is intended to be an open, shared but somewhat private workplace habitat that can be constructed in a huge variety of ways. The conical shape makes a dramatic aesthetic statement and the geometry itself provides some interesting structural characteristics. The specifying steps imply quite a high degree of openness:
>First step: choosing the floor diameter
>Second step: choosing the height and top diameter
>Third set of decisions: concerns arranging the interior elements, such as shelves, work surfaces, seats, power accessories and lighting – a surprisingly large selection of components and none but the workstation requiring supporting legs, due to the strength and geometry of the angled vertical posts.
I’d say oblivion would get a 9 out of 10 on my rating scale for open work. It doesn’t get a 10, because even though it can be relocated, it isn’t an easy task – I think it’s a good thing that it doesn’t move easily, and certainly it’s easier to move than most things of comparable scale, but still. Also, while the number of optional components is large, the options are limited by the unique geometry.
In my book, Mr. Malhan gets high marks for openness in furniture design, but in order to achieve his goal across the full product line, as the director of design for the whole company, he must be able to convince other product designers to strive for openness as well.
So let’s run another product through the 1 to 10 rating scale.
Tube was designed by the multiple “Compasso D’Oro” award winning team of Manente and Mion, known professionally as Studio Kairos. At least a couple of those awards are for designing storage products for B&B Italia, and one is for designing the Abak system for Herman Miller in Europe. Their brief from Mr. Malhan, as stated in the Koleksiyon product literature, was to design an “abstract stacking of volumes that provides a rich variety of utilities. While the cabinets serve as storage units, the empty spaces created between the volumes present exciting alternative areas of use, both to store and display.”
The storage system consists of cabinet modules offered in a wide variety of functional and finish options. The cabinets can be outfitted with drawers or doors that open from the top or the bottom. Finishes are wood veneer in a variety of colors and lacquer. The connecting axles and legs are steel with epoxy finish.
The concept is that the interior designer can arrange the storage modules in myriad geometric patterns to both divide space and provide storage in a completely unique way. The installed effect can be unexpected, interesting and more functional than a mere screen, with the voids providing piling/stacking space in heavy use areas or book storage, or even objet d’art display in lobbies or public spaces.
On my newly devised openness rating scale, this product easily sails to a 9 – Once again, I can’t give it a 10 because the modules (boxes) are not totally open to user manipulation, but this is a terrifically open design for interior planners to “play with.”
Despite being the largest in the known world, the North American office furniture market is not an easy one for European companies to succeed in. It takes more than just showing up with yet again another desking system and some harder than usual office seating. Koleksyion has a tough road ahead, but it is entering the market with fresh ideas and a strong philosophical foundation supporting its product design, and it is making the sorts of commitments that bode well for long-term success. It has already opened showrooms in New York and Dallas and has just signed a 10-year lease for a showroom on the 11th floor of the Merchandise Mart. We encourage those of you looking for something new to look into Koleksiyon. officeinsight will keep you posted as developments arise.