earlier this month i had the wonderful opportunity to spend an evening at the Herman Miller, Inc. National Design Center in Atlanta. this space operates as a work space, a conference center, and a retail space. it is a lighting wonderland. the HMI NDC is located inside of a beautifully revamped warehouse, which benefits from an enormous amount of sunlight. i imagine that this creates a pleasant working environment but that the lighting displays suffer during the day.
one of the interesting aspects of the lighting design here is that much of the light actually comes from pieces being shown by the
company. since Herman Miller is a furniture company, many of the items that they sell are lamps and other light fixtures. the lighting that comes from other sources must be designed so not to interfere with the light of the luminares on display. though we were there after the sun had set, i can see that the sawtooth clerestory and large wall windows must pose a problem during the day.
another clever design @ HMI was the use of light to create a "scene". a photograph to the right shows a contemporary dining room that they have created using only Herman Miller products. there are hypothetical office spaces that use the same strategy, creating an entire environment without help from other products. these office spaces are set up in a way that alleviates some daylight with half-walls so that the lighting fixtures can show their capabilities.
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