JASPER, IN (July, 2010) – National Office Furniture recently introduced the Antimicrobial Silver Ion Protection on its finished wood products including tables, casegoods and seating. Beginning July 1, 2010, antimicrobial silver ion technology comes standard at no upcharge on National’s wood finishes.
Inhibiting the growth of stain and odor causing bacteria, such as E.coli and Staph, as well as other microbes, silver ion technology provides a continuous protective antimicrobial surface. Tests have shown that on unprotected surfaces, bacteria have the capability to double in number every 20 minutes. Mitigating the effects of this rapid escalation, the antimicrobial silver ion technology embedded into our wood finish inhibits bacterial growth by 99.94%, keeping surfaces cleaner, longer.

Ideal for any space and organization, this extra level of product protection is especially suited for the high traffic, public areas in healthcare and education environments.

“From sustainability to quality and price point to reliability, at National, we constantly strive to add value for our customers any way we can. Infusing antimicrobial silver ion technology into our wood finish is one more way to ensure they receive exceptional product performance from National. We are pleased to offer this extra level of product protection to the marketplace as standard and at no additional cost,” says Angie Schuch, Director of Product Line Management, National Office Furniture. For more information call Corporate Environments at 610-974-7990

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President Obama signed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act on March 18, 2010. This new $17.5 billion legislation (scaled down from an earlier $150 billion package) is of particular interest to businesses as it includes new tax benefits directly related to hiring employees and writing off investments in equipment.

The new tax incentives for businesses to hire unemployed workers:

• payroll tax exemption of the employers share of Social Security taxes on wages paid to these workers after March 18, 2010.
• employer tax credit of up to $1,000 per worker

The new employees must meet these criteria in order to qualify for the business tax credits.

• hired between Feb 3, 2010 & Jan 1, 2011
• newly-hired employee was unemployed during the 60 days prior to starting work, or worked fewer than 40 hours for someone else during the 60 day period

Household employers are not eligible for the new tax benefits.

The HIRE Act is aimed at providing hiring incentives to restore some of the jobs lost in the latest economic recession. The goal is to help put Americans back to work as soon as possible. Business owners that hire qualifying workers sooner rather than later will get the most out of the tax credits, as the tax credits diminish over time, disappearing completely by January 1, 2011.

Another item of interest in this federal jobs bill is to permit small business owners to write off equipment investments of up to $250,000 this year, instead of taking years to depreciate. This in a doubling of the previous amount of $125,000. This will provide tax incentives for small businesses to grow while stimulating the economy with their investment spend.

President Obama’s job creation bill also includes provisions for putting people to work by reforming municipal bonds. Build America Bonds will allow the money to be spent on construction & repair of public projects like schools, highway and transit programs, as well as green and clean energy conservation projects like wind turbines and solar energy devices. Some of this money comes from moving $20 billion into the highway trust fund.

All politics aside, we will let the Americans going back to work decide how well the HIRE Act actually accomplishes its goals of a national recovery and job growth.

More details of the HIRE Act, including tax incentives like the payroll tax holiday can be found here.

A transcript of President Barack Obama’s signing of the HIRE Act at the White House can be found here.

The complete text of H.R. 2847 “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” can be found here.

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Dubai Mall Medical Centre

Bloomingdale’s, Giorgio Armani, and Catherine Malandrino aren’t the only major imports at the Burj Khalifa, the 2,600-foot-tall United Arab Emirates tower formerly known as the Burj Dubai. On the third story, health care based on a Western model is offered at the Dubai Mall Medical Centre, an NBBJ-designed alternative to local public options.

Whether circumstances call for an echocardiogram, a capped tooth, or a touch of Botox, traffic is heavy and truly multicultural: local elites rubbing shoulders with expats from Asia, Europe, and the U. S. To avoid an “airport lounge” feeling, senior lead designer Karen Eskandari explains, her team prepared a mood video exploring the sensory aspects of a visit to the medical center. What would it smell like? How would a door handle feel?

The 60,000-square-foot project borrows luxury-hospitality elements such as marble flooring. A color palette emerged when NBBJ pixellated photographs of the region’s landscape: taupe, pearlized cream, white, silver blue, and sea blue. Water, the ultimate luxury for desert dwellers, became a metaphor not only in terms of color but also in terms of shapes. CNC-milled MDF wall panels ripple like the surface of a pond.

Imagining how rain puddles, Eskandari designed free-form carpet insets to anchor separate seating groups in the spacious central waiting area. Semicircular ceiling tracks allow sheers, highlighted by recessed LED fixtures, to be pulled around each grouping for partial privacy. The sofas and ottomans inside are round or curved in deference to the region’s traditional flowing clothing, prone to snagging on sharp corners. It’s seating that would not appear at all out of place in the designer shoe department at Bloomingdale’s.

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Herman Miller Ardea

The Ardea light has earned both Gold and Silver honors from the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), while the Twist LED task light earned dual Bronze awards. The products and their respective awards across multiple categories secured a place for Herman Miller among the top corporate winners for 2010 and also for the past five years, with 8 awards in total during the period.

2010 marks the 30th year of the annual design competition, which recognizes design excellence in products, ecodesign, research, strategy, packaging, interactive design, and concepts. The IDEA awards are sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America and held in collaboration with the Henry Ford Museum and media sponsor Fast Company Magazine. Herman Miller’s Ardea and Twist lights were selected among 1900 product entries from 29 countries.

Designed by Yves Behar and fuseproject, Ardea took top honors in the Ecodesign and Home Living categories. Its elegant design, inspired by the long, slender, and flexible necks of great herons, is also highly functional: Users can infinitely direct illumination. Juror Mieko Kusano of Sonos, Inc., summarizes Ardea’s impression on jurors: “Organic form inspired by nature and design to have minimal impact on nature through high efficiency lighting and green design.”

Also designed by fuseproject, the Twist LED task light won recognition both in the Ecodesign and Office & Productivity categories. The Twist LED light consumes up to half the energy of other undershelf lights, while its energy-efficient, eco-friendly design is matched by its simple aesthetics and easy-to-control illumination.

Both lights are part of Herman Miller’s Thrive Portfolio, its collection of research-based, ergonomic products

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CHICAGO, IL (June 14, 2010) – Pallas Textiles and KI, longtime providers of textiles and furniture for healthcare design, today were recognized with Best of NeoCon and Editor’s Choice awards, respectively. The Entwined Collection from Pallas won a Healthcare Fabrics Gold award, while KI’s Soltice II Recliner earned an Editor’s Choice in the Healthcare Seating category.

“Entwined and Soltice II exemplify our approach to providing solutions and expertise for healthcare designers to create healing, comfortable environments that meet the needs of patients, families and staff,” said Shawn Green, vice president, product management, KI. “We’re honored to receive these prestigious awards.”

The Entwined Collection, the latest collaboration between Pallas Textiles and designer Laura Guido Clark, contributes to the quality of healthcare environments by creating an air of comfort and solace for those who need it most: patients and family members. Its simple lines form intricate patterns, delicate shapes, playing on light and shadow. This unique collection is comprised of four patterns (Running Stitch, On the Fringe, Interlaced and Unraveled) and one solid (Unspun).

The Soltíce II Recliner is a seating solution that offers enhanced versatility for healthcare environments, while providing durable construction, intuitive features and elegant design. While accommodating the need for comfort and safety, the Soltíce II Recliner features central-locking casters with 360-degree rotation, allowing caregivers to complete tasks with ease. Its simple, elegant design coordinates with a broad collection of other Soltíce products to create a consistent look throughout a healthcare facility.

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Muscatine, IA (June 14, 2010) – The HON Company received the “2010 Manufacturer of the Year Silver Award” from the Office Furniture Dealers Alliance (OFDA).  The award was announced on the opening day of the 2010 NeoCon® World’s Trade Fair in Chicago, the office furniture industry’s largest trade show of the year.

The annual OFDA Dealer’s Choice awards are presented to manufacturers for their commitment and outreach to the dealer channel.  The winning manufacturers were determined by the results of the Association’s annual OFDA Dealer Manufacturer Satisfaction Index Survey, a dealer poll designed to recognize the best of class performance and topics of concern for the dealer community.  The survey asked dealers to evaluate up to four of their manufacturer business partners in six key categories: training, product lines, service and support, sales and marketing, management and technology.

“The HON Company and our members are honored to be recognized by OFDA and dealers throughout North America with the 2010 Manufacturer of the Year Silver Award.  OFDA is an important industry organization, and to receive this designation from such a notable group is truly humbling,” said Jerry Dittmer, president of The HON Company. “We strive to provide the best combination of products and service to our dealer network. This award reflects our members’ ongoing commitment of excellence to dealers and their customers.”

For more information about The HON Company, its facilities and its comprehensive line of furnishings and accessories, visit www.hon.com

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Thrive Portfolio from Herman Miller

Feel Better. Work Better

Herman Miller’s research-based ergonomic products makes it possible for people to thrive. Described as Total Ergonomic Solutions, Herman Miller rolls out the Thrive Ergonomics Portfolio to better organize their health-positive line of products and help guide clients in their proper use. With their acquisition of UK-based Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Herman Miller rounds out their ergonomic product offerings to make people safer, happier, healthier and more comfortable.

Check out the new Thrive Portfolio for yourself at http://www.hermanmiller.com/Thrive-Portfolio

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Introducing the Herman Miller Healthcare Compass™ System

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Compass system, a new approach to modular furnishing systems for patient rooms, clinical care areas, exam rooms, and other clinical spaces in acute care and ambulatory care facilities.

The perfect healthcare space today will not be perfect tomorrow. Healthcare organizations face an ongoing challenge in managing their facilities: while treatment and care processes continually evolve, many healthcare spaces are not designed to adapt.

Compass helps navigate change. A modular system of interchangeable components for hospital and outpatient facilities, Compass is used to create applications for patient rooms, exam rooms, caregiver work areas, and other clinical spaces. More..

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BOSTON–A new partnership between building performance analysis specialists Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), and developers of the fast and intuitive 3D modeling tool Google SketchUp, was announced yesterday.

Solidifying the existing relationship between the two companies, which has been built over the last two years, this official partnership will support both parties’ drive to facilitate and encourage wide-spread, low-energy sustainable building design and to provide the worldwide audience with important tools that support this movement.

IES and SketchUp have taken the step to formalize a partnership agreement, following the worldwide success of the IES VE plug-in which links the four levels of VE analysis software to both the Free and Pro SketchUp platforms. SketchUp is one of the most widely used 3D design tools for early stage building design and IES VE tools are recognized as being at the cutting edge of building performance analysis and simulation. As part of the partnership, a discount on SketchUp Pro licences is being offered to all IES VE users, including users of the free IES VE-Ware energy and carbon calculation tool.

Enabling performance analysis of design iterations across a range of areas such as energy, carbon, water, climate impact, solar and daylight at very early design stages is a crucial element of achieving low-energy sustainable building design and assessing the economics of low/zero carbon technology and renewable energy use. The integration between SketchUp and IES addresses this need with a high-quality solution.

Architects at the leading edge of sustainable design are already excited by the potential of the current integration between IES and SketchUp tools; “Potentially, I think that this development could be as significant for the building design industry as the introduction of AutoCAD in the late 80’s – it might just be the catalyst to joining up environmental thinking between the architect and engineer,” states Ian Walker head of Environmental Engineering at Architects’ Broadway Malyan. “The only successful way to approach sustainable design is through integration across the entire design process.”

This official partnership demonstrates both IES and SketchUp’s continued commitment to the existing plug-in link between the two software platforms. An enhanced version of the IES VE SketchUp plug-in is due to be released later this month (June 2010). Proving a great springboard for future development, this joint willingness will help strengthen interoperability, and facilitate the addition of new features.

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Campo Chair from Kimball Office

JASPER, IN (May  2010) — For those in the market for task seating, Kimball(R) Office interstuhl(R) is offering a new, ergonomic and affordable option, with many of the same features found in higher-end office seating. Campos(TM) allows employees from all corners of the office to experience the comfort found when intuitive controls integrate with simple design. The line will debut in June, in the Kimball Office Chicago showroom, during the week of the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair.

“Campos revolutionizes the expectations of traditional task seating by including many of the same luxury features found in other Kimball Office  interstuhl seating products, and not currently available in the general task chair market,” said Jeff Fenwick, Vice President and General Manager at Kimball Office. “Campos combines solid quality with a light aesthetic, to provide the market with a budget-friendly, sustainable task chair.”
Crafted by world-renowned designer, Reiner Moll, Campos incorporates features such as a synchronous mechanism, tension adjustment, the option for a seat slider, adjustable lumbar pad, and a mesh or upholstered backrest. The line also includes large casters, backrest height adjustment, the choice of 2D or 4D armrests and a polished aluminum or black plastic base. Moll previously designed the award-winning Axos(TM), Best of NeoCon Gold 2007, and Xantos(TM), both Kimball Office  interstuhl lines.

Campos is ergonomic, Euro-styled seating, which encourages proper posture, respiration, circulation, and supports the vertebrae correctly. The line is available in a variety of mesh and upholstery colors. Orders for Campos will begin in early July 2010.

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