Action Office

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The Action Office is a series of furniture designed by Robert Propst, and manufactured and marketed by Herman Miller. First introduced in 1964 as the Action Office I product line, then superseded by the Action Office II series, it is an influential design in the history of "contract furniture" (office furniture). The Action Office II series introduced the concept of the flexible, semi-enclosed workspaces, now better known as the cubicle. All cubicle office designs can be traced back to Herman Miller's Action Office product lines.[ citation needed ]

Contents

History

Robert Propst was the Herman Miller Research Corporation's leader during the early 1960s. They worked on an evaluation of "the office" – particularly how it functioned in the 1960s. [1] Propst's studies included learning about the ways people work in an office, how information travels, and how the office layout affects their performance. He consulted with Joan Evans (scholar of ornament and pattern), Terry Allen and Carl Frost (Michigan State University psychologists), Robert Sommer (who investigated the effects of different spaces on mental health), Edward T. Hall (anthropologist and author of the 1959 book, The Silent Language [2] ), as well as with a number of specialists. [1]

Propst concluded from his studies that the office environment had changed substantially, especially when considering the dramatic increase in the amount of information being processed. Propst commented that "one of the regrettable conditions of present day offices is the tendency to provide a formula kind of sameness for everyone." In addition, the employees were suffering from long hours of sitting in one position. [1]

Action Office I

To address the problems plaguing office workers of the time during 1964, the Action Office I was created. [1] [3] The Action Office I received the Alcoa Award. [1]

Action Office II

Following the poor feedback of Action Office I, Propst and Nelson sought to create the next-generation, Action Office II. For several years Propst and Nelson fought. With Nelson gone, Propst was free to explore his concept of an office that was capable of modification to suit the changing needs of the employee. He wanted to allow the employee a degree of privacy. [1]

Action Office II had components that anyone could assemble and install. More importantly, they allowed the company to modify the work environment as needs changed. [1]

The Action Office II lineup was an unprecedented success, often referred to as the birth of the modern cubicle, [4] and was quickly copied by other manufacturers.

Despite the Action Office II line becoming Herman Miller's most successful project, George Nelson distanced himself from any connection with the project. [2] In 1970, he sent a letter to Robert Blaich, who had become Herman Miller's Vice-President for Corporate Design and Communication, in which he described the system's "dehumanizing effect as a working environment." He summed up his feeling by saying:

One does not have to be an especially perceptive critic to realize that AO-II is definitely not a system which produces an environment gratifying for people in general. But it is admirable for planners looking for ways of cramming in a maximum number of bodies, for "employees" (as against individuals), for "personnel," corporate zombies, the walking dead, the silent majority. A large market. [2]

Scornful as he may have been, Nelson was correct in stating that there would be a "larger market" for Action Office II. By 2005 total sales had reached $5 billion. [2]

First installations

The first offices to incorporate Action Office products were in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which had contracted with George Nelson and Herman Miller in 1963 to design an innovative office space that could maximize efficiency in a small area. The resulting design was based on Nelson's CPS (Comprehensive Panel System), and featured "pods" of four cubicles arranged in a swastika pattern, each with an L-shaped desk and overhead storage. Surviving photos of the Federal Reserve Bank offices reveal a design that would not appear much different from a cubicle of today. [2]

In 1964 this design was re-used for the Woman's Medical Clinic of Lafayette, Indiana, and in Nelson's own New York design offices. [2]

Action Office today

The Action Office I series was dropped from the Herman Miller lineup in 1970. [1] In 1978 the Action Office II line was renamed simply Action Office. [5]

In 1985 the Worldwidedesign Congress named Action Office the "Most Significant Design since 1960".[ citation needed ]

Recent modifications to Action Office include increased storage and more collaborative workspaces. The New York Museum of Modern Art added Resolve, a 1999 design that incorporates technology and 120° corners, to the museum's permanent collection in 2001.

In 1997, Robert Propst said that he had hoped that his idea would "give knowledge workers a more flexible, fluid environment than the rat-maze boxes of offices," but regretted that his idea had evolved to some extent into just that, saying that "the cubicle-izing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity." [6]

In the media

Action Office furnishings have appeared in many films released within the last thirty years. The first film to feature Action Office products was Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey , released in 1968. In the film a white Action Office I roll-top desk is used in the space station reception area. [7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pina, Leslie (1998). Classic Herman Miller. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN   0-7643-0471-2.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Abercrombie, Stanley (1995). George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN   0-262-01142-5.
  3. ↑ Habegger, Jerryll (2005). Sourcebook of Modern Furniture (Third ed.). New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN   0-393-73170-7.
  4. ↑ Mulroy, Brooke. "The Evolution of the Office Cubicle". Rosi Office Systems. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Herman Miller. "Action Office System - Products - Herman Miller" . Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  6. ↑ Lohr, Steve (11 August 1997). "Cubicles Are Winning War Against Closed Offices". New York Times. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
  7. ↑ Woods, Paul Richard (15 November 2014). "The Design of Kubrick's 2001: Everything from Cutlery to Project Sword". Project Sword: Moonbase Central. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
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