Herman Miller’s design festival, REACH connects the design community of different cities, culminating into a wholesome cultural experience.
Design can never be restricted by boundaries. It’s an all-encompassing phenomenon that overrides nations and ideologies. Taking this philosophy a notch higher, Herman Miller has introduced a design festival, REACH that travels to four cities – Beijing, Manila, Bangalore and Melbourne. It aims to connect the design community of each city, bring together thought leaders to share, learn from each other and celebrate the power of design. REACH inaugurated in Bangalore on 28th July, 2016.
The festival has a fantastic line up of international and regional designers, speakers and insight leaders presenting at the events. This year the focus is on issues that affect businesses on workspace strategy and design. This event presents the chance to interact with some of the biggest names in the design and furniture industry. REACH showcases the design philosophy which went behind developing the different Herman Miller range of products.
Of the various designers who were presenting at the event, Jack Wang, Head of R+D, POSH Design Lab, was one of them. POSH Design Lab is a Herman Miller company and Wang manages the new product design, development and new product initiative process from the initial concept through to the final launch. His latest products include ActivityTM, OptimisTM, ExpressTM and ImagineTM.
The Activity chair features a weight-sensitive mechanism that responds to the body automatically and delivers comfort in an instant. Since new ways of working are leading us to agile environments that promote collaboration, creativity and productivity, Activity helps build self-empowerment through flexibility.
The Optimis Desking System celebrates the joy of creating by focusing on simple materials like paper and sheet metal that can be designed to focus highly robust and architectural objects. POSH Design Lab also took cues from origami techniques and the end result is a unique desking solution that is highly functional and less impactful on the environment. It is also the first desking platform with an open source platform for paper accessories.
Richard Stevens, also a presenter at REACH, is the founder of design company forpeople and Creative Director of British Airways. He is one of UK’s leading designers who has worked with iconic brands with his firm forpeople and is defining the future of one of the world’s leading airlines, British Airways.
Both Herman Miller and Stevens see things in a similar way: the continuous search for new perspectives and insights brought to life by great design, cutting-edge engineering and responsible manufacturing. This is demonstrated in their design of the Keyn Chair Group, a range of meeting and side chairs that offer responsive movement and immediate comfort for collaborative spaces.
The design uses four key parts to create every model in the group, so each retains the same visual appeal. For extra comfort, Keyn’s CradleFlex movement responds to shifts in posture, reclining up to 10 degrees. Among the international speakers were Eames Demetrios and Steve Frykholm.
Demetrios is best known in the design world for his work as director of the Eames Office. He works closely with Herman Miller to ensure the Eames furniture is always made authentically and he was instrumental in the founding of the Eames Foundation that preserves the Eames House. Frykholm was hired in 1970 by Herman Miller as its first in-house graphic designer and there was no looking back from there. His work has been published in books and periodicals nationally, while some of his initial works are on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Text By Rehana Hussain
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