2013 BOY Winner: Manufacturer/Dealer Office

Putting 15 years of workplace research into practice, this furniture giant asked Joey Shimoda to help its in-house design team transform a 325,000-square-foot factory into an “innovation center,” a better environment in which employees could gather, physically or virtually. A glowing ceiling of stretched PVC seems to draw you toward the war room, a two-level hub that supporats both product-development specialists and the global sales team—with spaces tailored to a range of tasks. Engineers interface over the low dividers of benching systems, as designers brainstorm in glass-enclosed studios. Need to break away for a quick meeting but still be connected? Touchdown spots offer monitors that stream updates on the project at hand. Open-plan “mobile neighborhoods” and tech-fortified enclaves are intended for individual work. Large groups can avail themselves of multiscreen videoconferencing to talk to colleagues around the world, whether they be in Rosenheim, Germany, or Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Project Team:
James Ludwig; Susan Chang; David Khuong; Ying-Ling Sun; Liz Cao; Romiar Karamooz; Andre Krause; Neil Muntzel; Paul Vu; Hiiro Tomita; Martin Torres.