Contract - January/February 2016 - 100

INTERIORS AWARDS

Office: Large
Perkins+Will

Newell Rubbermaid
Design Center

By Edward Keegan
Photography by
Hedrich Blessing
Photographers

Client
Newell Rubbermaid
Location
Kalamazoo, Michigan
100

Atlanta-based Newell Rubbermaid is an extensive conglomerate
behind many household products, "from Paper Mate to baby carriages,"
explains Eva Maddox, a Perkins+Will branded environments design
principal based in Chicago.
The company charged Perkins+Will with the creation of a
consolidated center for its designers at Western Michigan University's
Business Technology and Research (BTR) Park outside Kalamazoo,
Michigan. More than 100 professionals-including industrial designers,
graphic designers, usability professionals, and studio engineers-are
employed at this facility, which is within a nondescript existing
40,000-square-foot steel-framed big-box structure in a suburbanstyle office park.
Southwestern Michigan has played a storied role in the industrial
design world-home to giants Haworth and Herman Miller, who are
both recent clients of Maddox. "There's a trove of designers in that
area," she says. The design for Newell Rubbermaid attempts to connect
to that long-established local design culture of making by expressing
wood detailing and craft.
"Great design is a competitive advantage," says Nate Young,
Newell Rubbermaid's vice president of global innovation. "It's an
exclusive tier of companies that recognize and endorse its impact."
The center's design is simple: An open-plan studio in the middle
is bracketed by meeting and reception rooms along the west end and
workshop spaces to the east. Bisecting the plan-and tying together
these elements-is an open corridor defined by slats of locally sourced
ash wood on the walls and ceiling.
More than seven miles of 2-inch-deep horizontal ash wood slats
clad the main interior corridor walls. Along the south wall of the space,
which also leads to the design studio, the pattern is only slightly
irregular, with slats eliminated to reveal six nearly 10-foot-tall
supergraphic numerals that signify each "immersion room." These
discrete workspaces can be dedicated to project teams for an
extended period of time for intensive and private explorations.
Products conceived here can be readily prototyped on-site
in the adjacent workshops, fully evaluated, rethought, and redesigned

in a rapid feedback loop, which allows the designers to engage
naturally in an iterative process to encourage innovation. South of the
immersion rooms, a narrow zone of open space along the building's
perimeter provides informal collaboration areas with ample
natural daylight, allowing a literal breather from the more
intense interior spaces.
Grand Rapids, Michigan-based XIBITZ produced the wood
installations. "[XIBITZ designers are] great collaborators and problem
solvers," recalls Maddox, who has worked with the company on
previous projects. A dark blue wood wall behind the reception desk
incorporates approximately 30,000 1-inch-by-2-inch wood blocks in a
pattern intended to represent collaboration while providing a gateway
to the rest of the interior. "Some blocks are acrylic that twinkle with
light-the spark of creativity, spark of an idea-spilling out in all
directions," explains Eileen Jones, also a Perkins+Will branded
environments design principal based in Chicago. Ash was used here for
its durability and dimensional stability, which is especially important in
such a large installation. It didn't hurt that a current supply glut
resulted in lower costs as well.
Beyond the wood feature installations, the interior palette is quite
neutral, with the building's exposed interior structure painted white.
Matching white gypsum board walls define the spaces, and concrete
floors are exposed. This neutral backdrop allows for work to dominate
the space, enabling the tactically deployed features, such as the
slatted wood wall, to provide design inspiration. Despite the design
center's relatively small size, Atlanta-based Perkins+Will Senior Interior
Designer David Sheehan says, "We gave great clarity to the space
by making a major impact with simple means."
Most of the Newell Rubbermaid Design Center's innovations
lie ahead. The facility's real potential is to foster broader engagement
within the company and even with neighboring companies in the BTR
Park and the region. "It's a future trend," Maddox says. "How can
industry and education come together?" c

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