Blending inspirational photography and interactive features, the new information rich Knoll Antenna Workspaces microsite serves up extensive planning and product information for the Best of NeoCon 2010 Innovation Award and Good Design Award 2010 winner.
Created by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger, the principals of Antenna Design, Antenna Workspaces is a new approach to the workplace that supports the freedom and mobility people seek in today’s office. Desks, tables, screens and storage combine and recombine in a seemingly infinite number of ways for open plan environments, private offices and meeting spaces.
Each section of the Knoll Antenna Workspaces microsite provides background on Knoll Design and Workplace Experience, the Antenna Workspaces Idea and Concept, and the Sustainable Design story behind the product. Sections for each of the six Antenna Workspaces planning modes — Table and Desk, Linked Desks, Big Table, Antenna + Fence, Antenna + Template and Private Office.
The new Knoll Antenna Workspaces microsite features interactive photography, video animations and new tools that allow visitors to learn about Antenna Workspaces, a new workspace fit for task and team, in a whole new way.
Antenna Workspaces is a simple and extremely flexible office system for post-cubicle open-planning.
The designers ( Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger ) took a very pragmatic approach – achieving more with less – to respond to various contemporary challenges, such as flexible planning, responsible use of materials and technology accommodation.
Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger
Here, a synthesis of simplicity and flexibility is the answer. As a result, the system feels light and dynamic. It picks up on early modernism with its youthful and optimistic spirit, including Knoll’s own heritage. Color, material and finish are used for articulation of different functions, expression of personality and comfort.
At the core of the system lies its structural concept. Inspired by elevated highway structures, horizontal rails float over inverted U-shaped legs, hinting at an endless extension of the horizontal surface. A compact “cradle” connects rails to legs rigidly, allowing the rails to support cantilevered and long-span worksurfaces. The rails’ diamond-shape section enables easy connectivity, horizontally to other worksurfaces and structures, upwards to space-articulating storage elements, and downwards to suspended storage and accessories.
In distilling the product to its essence, the system creates a multitude of configurations using a minimum of parts: from focused individual spaces to casual collaborative spaces. We looked at the furniture as interface – mediating between people and their work and amongst colleagues. Vertical division is provided by a series of storage and screens, as opposed to panels and walls. Carefully planned storage elements work as a mediator between individual space and shared/public space, articulating boundaries while promoting a courteous interaction
Where Do You Work?
Whether in an office, at home or a coffee shop, work today requires shifting from one task and one type of work to another—from focused projects to shared and team activities. Antenna Workspaces simplifies transition from individual to group work, reflecting the freedom and mobility people seek in today’s workplace
A Belief in Modern Design
Knoll uses modern design to connect people with their work, their lives and their world. Since our founding in 1938, we have explored the power of innovative design to create compelling work environments that both inspire and endure. Our co-founder, Florence Knoll, reconceived the modern office and pioneered the practice of interior design, setting new standards in solving practical workplace needs
Research and Experience
Through research and experience, Knoll understands that today’s workplace is a dynamic environment that must support a broader range of work modes and geographies than ever before. Our research reveals that the workplace is less about individual “heads down” work, and more and more about supporting transitions from individual to group work in the course of the day by integrating communal, collaborative spaces. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of workers with innovative, flexible products that enable organizations to better support those fluid transitions.
Workplace Innovation
Throughout our history, Knoll has redefined the modern office with furniture designs that change the ways people work. Florence Knoll established the Knoll Planning Unit to create totally designed interiors, from the initial plan to the final selection and placement of furniture and accessories, paving the way with her pioneering Model 1500 Series Desk and executive office designs. Subsequent collaborations with Bill Stephens, Otto Zapf, Bruce Hannah, Andrew Morrison, Charles Rozier and Robert Reuter, among others, have made us the definitive source when it comes to the latest developments in the contemporary workplace. And in today’s rapidly evolving workplace, the Antenna Workspaces fits seamlessly into this continuum.
Idea & Concept
Collective Wisdom
With planning schemes for private and common social areas, Antenna Workspaces is a new approach to workplace design that reflects the freedom and mobility people seek in today’s office. Designed by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger, Antenna Workspaces reflects their dedication to making the experience of technology and environments more meaningful and exciting.
An Idea with Legs
Antenna Workspaces combines artistic invention with functional efficiency and a commitment to environmental sustainability, solving practical workplace needs. In striving to find the right form to provide a multitude of options, Udagawa and Moeslinger created a simple structure and then set out to explore its transitions to maximize use and flexibility with a minimum of parts.
Pairing standards of functional simplicity and a pure, honest approach to materials has resulted in a state-of-the-art workplace experience that is as collaborative and dynamic as it is logical and efficient. The result: planning schemes for private and common social areas that strike a balance between individual and group activities.
Workplace Experience
Understanding Workplace Integration
From our research and ongoing interaction with our customers, we have seen that the individual workstation is no longer the centerpiece of the workplace. Instead, our recent studies across eight industries show that work environments that integrate three distinct modes of work—focus, share and team—benefit from the corresponding contribution to business effectiveness. The building blocks of good workplace planning is a well selected set of furnishings “elements” that provide a nimble tool set to support the organization. These pieces can be combined and recombined in response to shifting needs.
Recognising Various Work Modes
Knoll has identified multiple modes of work occurring in the workplace. Throughout the day, individuals naturally shift among these different types of work. An integrated planning model facilitates movement between each mode:
Focus: Individually-oriented work that occurs within a primary workspace and requires concentration and reduced interruptions.
Share: Collaboration that occurs in individual or group spaces and centers on the casual exchange of ideas with a small number of colleagues.
Team: Group efforts applied to specific work goals, occurring in both formal and informal meeting spaces.Employees engage in social activity, an integral part of all work modes and workspaces. As the name implies, social activity provides impromptu social connection, linking workers to their colleagues and organization. The dynamic work place eases the flow of people and ideas between work modes in spaces designed for integrated work.
Creating a Dynamic Workplace
Over the last four decades, open plan work environments have often relied on a monolithic planning solution that duplicates clusters of workstations with repetitive predictability. While appropriate for some types of organizations, this one dimensioned approach ignores the complexities of most contemporary workplaces. Across industries, the real estate equation is changing from that static solution to a more adaptable model that recognizes a variety of work modes—what people actually do in the workplace. Flexibility is expressed through the notion of proportional planning: understanding the predominant work mode or modes—focus, share, team and activity—and planning the facility in parallel to those needs.
What is Sustainability at Knoll ?
For more than 30 years, Knoll has been an industry leader in sustainable policies and practices designed to protect the biosphere, conserve natural resources and reduce waste. We focus on climate change, third party certification and environmentally sensitive materials, products and manufacturing processes. We pursue meaningful partnerships with third party organizations that provide independent verification of environmental standards that are transparent and universally accepted.
Knoll Design for Environmental Guidelines
The design and development of Antenna Workspaces followed Knoll Design for the Environment Guidelines, which specify design for durability; using minimum, non-toxic, recyclable and/or rapidly renewable materials; design for recycling; evaluating materials and sources for energy use and impacts throughout the stream of commerce; manufacturing with clean technology and protecting indoor air quality by minimizing off gasses in environments in which products are used.
Manufacturing
Our industry-leading clean technology limits and controls emissions in manufacturing.
We manufacture Antenna Workspaces in our LEED® Gold, ISO-14001 certified facility in East Greenville, Penn., which is also an OSHA VPP Star site. 100% of electricity used at the site is offset by wind energy. The assembly process features robotic processes to assure manufacturing precision
