Back from the Windy City, a trip to the Merchandise Mart to look at furniture ideas for the building project. My feet still hurt and I won’t look at a chair the same way again.
For anyone who has never been to the Mart, close your eyes and imagine…the wor
ld’s largest commercial building, 25 stories high, about 4.2 million gross square feet over 2 city blocks. Go ahead, admit it, you are exhausted even thinking about it.
The design team (Dorschner/Sasaki) scheduled 17 showroom visits starting at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday and the last one was 12:15 p.m. on Friday. Headed down from Madison were Dean Douthitt, Professor Roberto Rengel, Angela Pakes Ahlman from UW-Madison’s FP&M office and me.
After grabbing coffee on the first floor we headed up to the first appointment – I was struck by the fact the building was vacant. Because the showrooms are all open by appointment there is no hallway traffic. Imagine 4.2 million gross square feet mostly empty – like a Hollywood movie where aliens have taken all the people away and all we are left with are the most extraordinarily appointed rooms with the most exquisite furniture.
The spaces are designed with the most wonderful lighting and elements to showcase everything “just so.”
But picture this – one place had every single chair and sofa upholstered in creamy white leather, some trimmed in dark wood – no other color, just supple leather. Nothing
is more seductive than sinking into a butter soft chair that cradles and supports in just the right places, yummy. Another place had every piece of furniture done in the same rich steel gray felted wool. One showroom had every piece of office system furniture in white – these folks are good.
The other thing that blew me away was the high level of hospitality exhibited by the vendors we visited. At every appointment we were immediately and warmly greeted, offered a range of beverages and snacks including trail mix,
chocolates, gummy bears, mints, nuts and the most extraordinary caramel corn. Each vendor had some kind of fabulous bag for us filled with literature, more water and snacks.
But enough about the meetings, let’s talk about the furniture!
The design team had identified 61 different seating options for us to try – we tried chairs for the reading room, stools for the café, office guest chairs, reception chairs for the Centers, chairs for faculty/staff offices, chairs for conference rooms, chairs for student areas, chairs for niche study spaces, options for the outside green roof, seating for the Gallery, classroom seating and even wonderful “snuggle” chairs for the preschool. We discussed things like the “green” story for the manufacturer and asked lots of questions: Do the café stools come with a foot rest
? How high will the classroom chairs stack? Does that chair come with wheels and how much noise would it make sliding on a hard surface? Is the chair adjustable, can the piece be outside in all weather, what’s the warranty, color choices, wood options, does it swivel - you name it, we tested it.
Flexibility is a key value for the project, and boy did we see innovative solutions. Demountable wall systems with solid acoustic privacy, glass or opaque walls that can be reconfigured in a matter of a few hours; workstations where the tabletops raise or lower with pneumatics, slick technology integration and LED lighting solutions.
No more white boards! Everywhere we looked glass was the order of the day. Tabletops and wall panels with back painted glass that function with markers or paint and can be cleaned with Windex – dream of a world with no more ghosts on writing surfaces.
Here we are, just days away from Phase One of relocation and scrambling to find metal bookcases for offices and a decent conference table for the collaboration space. Imagine the day when we get to move in and everything is new, it’s clean — and oh my, it matches!
