Chicago 2022
Workplaces are in flux. Whether you work in a commercial office, a home office, or a mix of spaces that changes daily, we crave environments that make us feel connected. That connection—to our work, our goals, our peers, and what ultimately drives us—is something that must be included when designing spaces.
That’s where our Perfect Harmony portfolio comes into play. Throughout our Chicago Showroom experience, you’ll see how thoughtful design can make us feel like we a part of something bigger. By incorporating the right mix of furniture solutions and human-focused elements, it’s easy to create spaces that are inviting, personal, and functional…ultimately creating a culture that employees want to return to.
Kimball International offers thoughtful design and product solutions that make employees, clients, and guests feel like they are a part of something bigger. Through research, we examined healthcare, workplace, and education experiences. We uncovered that employees needed flexible, adaptable, and safe spaces to feel comfortable and fully enter back into each of these spaces. While not surprising individually, it was interesting to note that this need was across all industries. This research also validated what we all know to be true - the right spaces create connections.
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Throughout our Chicago Showroom experience, it will become obvious how thoughtful design can make employees, clients, and guests feel like they are a part of something bigger. By incorporating the right mix of furniture solutions and human-focused elements, it’s easy to create spaces that are inviting, personal, and functional…ultimately creating a culture that people want to return to.
RID
Research-Informed Design
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Responsive Design in the Workplace
During the pandemic, we conducted research to better understand employee needs. With our research partners, we found one consistent message. No matter the end market, design must be responsive. We took a closer look at spaces that are needed to support responsive design and discovered four trends. Pliability, Performance, Power, and Placement (the 4 Ps) must be considered to develop spaces that can be truly responsive to users’ needs and provide optimal experiences.
Pliability
More than flexibility and adaptability, pliability encompasses a wide variety of changes. From micro changes (such as adding a screen for safety) to macro changes (like reconfiguration for improved workflow) a pliable environment is one that is intentionally designed to change and adapt to the unknown future.
Performance
Safety, durability, sustainability, and protection are key indicators of performance. Products that are better for the interior environment AND the planet are an expectation for designers and owners. Recent studies have shown that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is a critical factor in attracting top talent in all industries.
Power
It goes without saying that power is now a requirement. Perhaps in the future, power and data will all be a part of the metaverse, but today (and the foreseeable future), power reigns supreme. Tied closely with flexibility, lack of easy access to power and data, both wireless and wired, can be an incredible dissatisfier in an environment.
Placement
Furniture placement can appear haphazard and lead to inefficiencies in workflow if not fully thought through. Tied directly to placement, our live design charrette tool, Elevate, provides a measured approach to intentionally designing for change, incorporating performance factors, and integrating power and data. Our Elevate process minimizes time and increases opportunities to improve the user experience.
6 Type of Spaces
Our Chicago showrooms are filled with a broad range of product applications that create connection. These six types of spaces allow users to be successful in all you do, creating a place to be:
Connected: The Hub
Often described as the heartbeat of the office, the Hub supports socialization and connectivity. These spaces are often designed with comfortable, casual, and eclectic pieces.
Productive: Culture Café
These spaces play an important part in defining an organization’s brand and culture, as well as creating a positive customer experience. They offer a variety of seating options for meeting, catching up, and grabbing a bite to eat.
Flexible: Work Your Way
These workspaces support users throughout their work day. From spaces with visual and acoustical privacy to informal meeting areas, these destinations accommodate planned and impromptu interactions.
Inspired: The Meet-Up
Tech-savvy spaces that support coming together, in-person or virtually. These conference rooms and huddle spaces are highly functional and encourage collaboration and problem solving.
Engaged: Room on the Move
Versatile and movable furniture solutions allow these spaces to easily transition. Promote learning, training, mentoring, and hands-on activities by offering these flexible spaces.
Safe: Well + Good
Promote employee well-being and safety with spaces and programs dedicated to overall health. These areas include yoga and meditation spaces or more personal needs like a mother’s room.
Responsive Design in Healthcare
The Health Market is changing rapidly, and the role of space has never been as pivotal as it is today. While the last year was full of challenges, we saw an opportunity to be a catalyst for change. We believe the future of healthcare is shapeable, and Kimball International is aligning our business to provide solutions that make a positive impact on the delivery of care.
Throughout the Chicago Showroom experience, you’ll see how our approach to insights and research methodologies, partnered with design thinking, come together by leveraging the Perfect Harmony portfolio of products. By using solutions from all our brands, we have created innovative spaces that support better environments throughout the entire facility.
We know that the hospital’s physical environment plays a key role in determining patients’ health outcomes – and it is our mission to support you in keeping pace with the demands of today, so you can elevate every experience to impact the way healthcare is delivered tomorrow.
While in the Chicago showroom, you’ll see a broad range of applications to support emerging trends in healthcare:
Trends in Healthcare
While in the Chicago showroom, you’ll see a broad range of applications to support emerging trends in healthcare:
Flexible: Community
Patients seek convenience throughout their journey — from short and comfortable wait times to engaging conversations with caregivers in versatile consultative settings.
Balanced: Caregiver Spaces
Caregiver burnout didn’t start with COVID-19, and it won’t end with it either. We are conducting observations and working with clients to bring forth solutions that will aid in supporting the quality of care for the caregiver.
Supportive: Family Engagement
Creating dedicated space for family to be engaged and an active participant in the care journey is proven to reduce patient stress and improve communication.
Equitable: Virtual Care
As technology continues to become more and more present in today’s care, it is critical to provide environments that can strengthen engagements between caregiver and patient whether virtual or in-person.
Product Plus with Kimball International
Riverside 1st Floor Showroom
1st floor
Riverside 1st Floor Showroom
Culture Café
Just like guests are drawn to visit in the home kitchen, the café is where a lot of socializing and catching up naturally happens. By creating a welcoming space that caters to employees and guests (think a variety of seating spaces, gathering nooks, and of course easy access to charging capabilities), employee engagement and morale will increase and your corporate culture will grow.
Riverside 1st Floor Showroom
Riverside 2nd Floor Showroom
@nd Floor
Riverside 2nd Floor Showroom
The Hub
When you “meet”, it doesn’t always mean in-person. But it does always mean making a connection. Design spaces that can be used for in-person and hybrid collaboration sessions, without missing a beat. This space easily converts from a large gathering area to one that can be thoughtfully reconfigured to accommodate a more personal interaction.
Riverside 2nd Floor Showroom
Whether gathering for casual connections or solving problems, these spaces need to be flexible and accommodating. From grand boardrooms to petite huddle spaces, if the aesthetic isn’t inviting, conversations might be stifled. Encourage open discussion by offering various spaces that spark dialog. Be sure to smoothly accommodate in-person and virtual participation by offering flexible furniture that can easily meet fluctuating attendance. Power and data that is intuitive and easy to access is always appreciated by all attendees.
Empower employees to do their best work by providing spaces that accommodate their personal needs…even if those requirements vary from day to day or task by task. Whether the ideal space features visual and acoustical privacy, or benching-style interactions to suit a specific task, people want to have a choice. Provide flexibility in working spaces so that employees can find what works for the job at hand.
Within a healthcare facility, comfort in the space and confidence in the care being given is critical. With the right expertise, products, and solutions, Interwoven’s goal is to enhance every experience that can impact care and outcomes. Leveraging research and insights, paired with design thinking, leads to spaces designed to support patients, families, and caregivers, enhancing the experience for all.
Kimball is your partner when you need to craft an elegant balance of timeless design that can keep up with the evolving needs of the workplace. In staying authentic to your business’ culture, our goal is to understand your specific needs and work together to create the best solution that embodies your company. We value collaboration and provide custom solutions that bring meaning to spaces. Through purposeful style and unique products, we strive to elevate your brand.
Etc. is a Win-Win-Win. On trend. On time. On budget. Through research, we have found there is a void for customers to procure trendy ancillary solutions from an established, reliable brand already immersed in the industry. Etc. offers customers access to the latest furniture designs that can be updated as quickly as styles change allowing customers to refresh their space on a regular cycle.
We’re emphasizing Poppin’s tagline—and our ethos—as we introduce ourselves as part of the Kimball International family. By creating an experiential environment that invites visitors to interact with the space, we can center the concept of “Work Happy” and highlight our PoppinPod Om. As visitors move through the space, they’re drawn through and past the “Everyday” office experience and into the special “Work Happy” world of Poppin.
National transforms work spaces to work places where you feel like you belong. Like the values of our brand, we design products to be genuine, warm, and inspiring. Our easygoing, straightforward nature makes you feel at home. Our thoughtful details, comprehensive materials, and easy-to-specify products make us easy to do business with. We are here to help you create spaces where people can feel inspired, be who they are, and do their best work.
Patients seek convenience throughout their journey — from short and comfortable wait times to engaging conversations with caregivers in versatile consultative settings.
Caregiver burnout didn’t start with COVID-19, and it won’t end with it either. We are conducting observations and working with clients to bring forth solutions that will aid in supporting the quality of care for the caregiver.
Creating dedicated space for family to be engaged and an active participant in the care journey is proven to reduce patient stress and improve communication.
Creating dedicated space for family to be engaged and an active participant in the care journey is proven to reduce patient stress and improve communication.
Catwalk Showroom
Catwalk
Catwalk Showroom
The Hub
Create welcoming spaces that easily promote collaboration and socialization. From casual bar height seating overlooking big city hustle and bustle to homey touches in a welcoming lounge space, this area accommodates all. Whether your guests are gathering for a celebratory meal or employees are having a quick sync on an ongoing project, these flexible spaces are critical to success.
Catwalk Showroom
Happiness is the true measure of success. From private office spaces to lounge-worthy coves to adjustable height work zones, offering a choice makes employees and customers feel treasured. By providing options, they can find what works for their task, ergonomic needs, and state of mind. Create happiness by designing a variety of spaces. The choice is theirs.
Let’s face it, face to face is the way to go. Whether it is in-person or virtually through a screen, some tasks simply require that connection. Support the journey by offering spaces that easily encourage collaboration. The key to creating successful conference rooms and gathering spaces is to offer a mix of solutions. From casual and cozy lounge settings to professional and tech-savvy boardrooms, these areas will be used by all levels of an organization to accommodate their meeting needs.
Having what is needed when it’s needed makes any task easier. Flexible furniture solutions give spaces the opportunity to morph and transform as situations arise. Take the stress out of reconfiguring learning spaces by providing solutions designed with integrated mobility and smart storage features. This flexibility means less time struggling to set up a space and more time focused on training and mentoring.
Even the smallest of spaces can generate grand results. When it comes to mental well-being, having an area that can easily transition into a place of relaxation adds to overall personal health. Improve energy, manage stress, and balance life and work more efficiently by taking a few minutes each day for a simple break or an intentional moment of yoga or meditation.
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Gallery
Stories
Stories
We are Makers of Possibility
We find meaning and identity by turning ordinary spaces into distinctive places. The places we shape and share create deep connections, making us feel like part of a larger whole. These connections provide comfort, which serves as the foundation for us to fulfill our inner drive for growth and exploration.
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We empower creatives to improve the human experience through the spaces we design. Join us as we go deeper than the mainstream conversations buzzing around the industry, and present an alternative way to celebrate the human experience through design thinking and unlikely inspirational sources.
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With an extensive portfolio of desks, tables, storage, and space division modules, EverySpace features a comprehensive and highly flexible offering. Designed for a healthful, human-centered workplace, its clean and modern aesthetic inspires new ways of working. EverySpace is a creative framework for the future.