Contract - January/February 2013 - (Page 59)

Graves has designed a new home for the Steadman Clinic (rendering, left), a worldrenowned orthopedic clinic. To be complete in 2015, the project is a 75,000-squarefoot medical office building and research institute in Vail, Colorado. In recent years, Graves has designed a number of products for healthcare interiors. For Stryker, this includes an overbed table as well as a stand-assist chair (above) with arms that are raised to allow one to position themselves more easily when standing or sitting. Also part of the Michael Graves/Stryker collection, The Prime TC™ patient transport chair (right) incorporates innovations in comfort, safety, and mobility. as a merchandizing executive at the chain. “Ron says the egg is a universal shape that will fit everyone’s hand,” Graves says. “We made the oversized ice cream scoop with a soft-touch handle so that an arthritic person would think it not a stretch to pick up. It wasn’t just an abstract form, in other words.” Johnson went on to shape the iconic Apple stores with Steve Jobs before becoming CEO at J.C. Penney, now rebranded simply as jcp. He has again commissioned exclusive product designs from Graves that are set to launch this March. The 300-item collection will include home goods such as a toaster, vases, and tabletop place settings, as well as utilitarian items like mops, brooms, and buckets. The stylistic cues range widely, from familiarly chubby, whimsical profiles to simple forms reminiscent of midcentury Modernism. And, yes, there will be a new Graves teakettle for jcp. The Graves products are central to Johnson’s reinvention of the J.C. Penney brand as jcp. “We want to be involved in more aspects of peoples’ lives,” says Johnson, who is widening the store’s product choice considerably and displaying exclusive items within designer boutiques, including one Graves designed as the backdrop for his products. “The customer will experience 360 degrees of Michael Graves,” Johnson explains. Graves was no stranger to product design prior to the relationship with Target. After graduating from Harvard, he had worked briefly for George Nelson, the renowned designer for Herman Miller. He designed elegant, high-end tableware for Swid Powell and Alessi, not to mention the famed teakettle. The lighthearted, engaging quality that brought Graves’s architecture to prominence has served the product designs well. For Target, he designed a toilet brush that sits within a container as refined in its curves as a Greek vase. The contract

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Contract - January/February 2013

Contract - January/February 2013
Contents
Editorial
Industry News
Product Briefs: Lighting
Product Focus: Bonaire and Buxom
Designer of the Year
Legend Award
34th annual interiors awards
Large Office
Small Office
Hotel
Restaurant
Healthcare
Education
Public Space
Showroom
Entertainment
Sustainable
Adaptive Reuse
Retail
Student
Designers Select: Tables and Desks
Sources
Ad Index
Public Interest Design
Perspective: Michael Graves on the Lost Art of Drawing

Contract - January/February 2013