Starter Office

The furniture manufacturer Herman Miller had a longstanding relationship with Grimshaw, having commissioned the firm to design two buildings. They were interested in Grimshaw’s concept of a “Starter Office”, and asked the practice to work up the idea.

Nicholas Grimshaw invited Eoin Billings and Duncan Jackson to help him to realise the solution and this project was effectively the start of Billings Jackson Design.

The Starter Office was conceived as a cheap, flat-pack system that rejected the conventional notion of a desk by hanging the majority of its components from a vertical, extendible, frame. Using it, any fledgling business could move into a space and get operational very quickly: it also anticipated the expanding home-office market.

The product was intentionally low cost for a number of reasons. There was significant corporate restructuring underway at the time and, in this atmosphere of corporate job insecurity, an increasing number of people were starting up their own offices.  In parallel, computers were beginning to populate offices. A young team’s first priority was to invest in PC technology leaving little to invest in expensive new furniture systems. 

It was Grimshaw’s belief that a number of these start-up companies would graduate into larger operations. The practical and economic nature of the furniture system must provide them with a tool to help in that development. Also, the home-office market was on the increase, partly due to the economic environment and partly due to more enlightened business practices. The system therefore had to adapt to a domestic environment. 

Large computer warehouses were envisaged as the ideal retail outlet, rather than the more traditional and expensive dealership route.  To facilitate this idea, the system had to be self-packing and come with a series of accessories that could be catalogue-ordered for immediate delivery.

The solution stands the test of time as expenditure on IT continues to take priority and more and more young companies set up shop. Added to this, the self-finishing materials and self-packing designs were consciously low in environmental impact, which of course is more critical than ever.