CHICAGO, March 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Herman Miller (NASDAQ: MLHR), the global leader in innovative design and furnishing solutions, announces the opening of a standalone location in Chicago's Fulton Market. After transitioning from a traditional trade-only showroom in the Merchandise Mart, Herman Miller brings the power of its growing family of eight brands together under one roof in its new retail, showroom and exhibition space.
"Today, more than ever, our customers are focused on creating useful places that matter," said Andi Owen, Chief Executive Officer, Herman Miller Group. "Our integrated approach blends home and work environments to respond not just to the needs of our core A&D customers, but also business leaders grappling with how to evolve their offices for tomorrow. Likewise, we're also meeting the growing demands of consumers who now, perhaps more than ever, have a heightened need, awareness and appreciation of good design at home."
The 45,000-square-foot location occupies a landmark 1920's brick building with an adjoining five-story newbuild, complete with a rooftop and outdoor pavilion. Developed by Fulton St. Companies in close collaboration with Herman Miller's in-house design team, the structure retains the original façade and seamlessly blends into the surrounding historic meatpacking corridor, turned tech hotspot.
"There is a lot of momentum in this neighborhood," said Tim Straker, Chief Marketing Officer, Herman Miller Group. "As people continue to invest in living, working, and shopping in the West Loop, we saw an opportunity to be one of the first-movers and major anchors in the neighborhood. Whether a retail or trade customer, visiting a vibrant space in a vibrant neighborhood creates the kind of experience our customers crave."
Herman Miller has designed a customer-first experience to empower every client with a breadth of product unlike any other in the industry – all in one place. The result embraces the collective synergies of the entire family of brands across retail and trade.
EXPANDING CONSUMER REACH
That collective synergy starts on the ground floor, where for the first time, shoppers will discover Herman Miller's three, distinct retail brands – Design Within Reach, HAY and Herman Miller – side by side. From furnishings that multitask, accessories to enhance every moment and performance seating that increases productivity; each brand offers smart, well-designed solutions for how we live and work today.
"We're thrilled to be one of the first retailers in this developing business and residential district within the city of Chicago." Debbie Propst, President, Herman Miller Group Retail. "We've built a destination, and as the neighborhood evolves, we will continue to serve as a resource for the people who live and work nearby and look forward to helping them create a space that they'll love to call home."
Herman Miller
Herman Miller is dedicated to selling performance seating and products that support the home office and small business worker. Created in direct response to present-day customer demands, the location is the fourth concept store of its kind and invites the public to test-drive Herman Miller's award-winning performance seating collection and experience the benefits of sitting well. At Fulton Market, A&D customers visiting the design showrooms by appointment will also have convenient access to the new seating experience as they enter and exit through the lobby.
Design Within Reach
Design Within Reach (DWR) has given people access to the best in authentic modern design since its founding in 1998. It seeks out and amplifies many great voices in design: the emerging, the established, and the legendary who came before, to create and source exceptionally crafted, built-to-last, and beautifully designed furnishings meant to be enjoyed over a lifetime and move with you – from home to home, generation to generation. With a forward-looking omnichannel approach, DWR has become more than a home for midcentury design – it is the source for modern living.
The company opens its second small-format store in recent weeks at Fulton Market – the first opened in Southampton, New York, earlier this month. From highly functional furnishings by Norm Architects and Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm, bold colors and materials by Studio Sayso, craft tradition demonstrated by Pat Kim and purist icons by Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, the evolved in-store experience features a curated product assortment that reflects the needs of the local Chicago consumer and embraces a wider point of view on modern aesthetic sensibilities. To satisfy the desire for instant gratification, the new DWR store also offers finishing touches such as accessories, books and décor, available to shop in-store and take home (a departure from the brand's traditional shop-and-ship showroom format).
HAY
Danish design brand HAY collaborates with some of the world's most forward-thinking designers to create products that serve a range of spaces that span from the bedroom, to the kitchen, to the conference room and many different environments in between. "Our collection embraces the beauty of quotidian life by creating fresh takes on a wide range of products that are part of our everyday, from a toothbrush to a paper bin to a sofa," said Rolf Hay, Co-Founder and Creative Director of HAY Furniture and Lighting. At HAY, shoppers will find fresh interpretations of color, form and function, to create vibrant and bright spaces. "I love working on products that we have in our hand everyday, and I strongly believe in the power that colors and beauty can have on us: We automatically take better care of an object that we find beautiful," said Mette Hay, Co-Founder and Creative Director of HAY Accessories.
Under the umbrella of Herman Miller Group, HAY at Fulton Market continues to deliver on the brand's mission to offer accessible, good design to many. Discover attainable, colorful and stylish products like desk accessories and office organizers ($5-$55), planters and garden tools ($20-$55), lighting ($55-$695) and furniture ranging from accent tables (starting at $95) to sofas (from $1995) to outdoor furnishings ($95-$895), and more.
EMPOWERING DESIGNERS AND END USERS
The combined power of ground-floor retail complements expressions from additional Herman Miller Group showrooms on floors above, making it easier for local and visiting A&D customers to find inspiration across the company's full portfolio of contract and residential brands.
Backed by decades of research and insights, "Herman Miller at Fulton Market addresses the biggest questions CEOs, executives, facility managers, commercial realtors and designers are asking: What's next?" explained Straker. "We approached the new showrooms with that same forward-looking outlook and have introduced real solutions to bring people back together."
Herman Miller
As designers arrive at Herman Miller on floor three, they'll enter the heart of the design center. Maharam Digital Projects' Arche Noah by Sonnhild Kestler sets the backdrop for a lively, open lounge and meeting area – a space to gather, collaborate, engage and learn together. Trade customers will experience the company's signature human-centric approach with a positive and progressive outlook, which addresses re-entry into the workplace and new ways of working with a more distributed workforce, including solutions to reengage and rebuild a sense of community. Here, designers will discover inspiration for ancillary spaces with an emphasis on furnishings for meeting, lounge, bistro and communal spaces, sprinkled with more private nooks for personal work and concentration throughout. Highlights include the debut of OE1, an agile, highly mobile modular workstation collection designed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin.
A staircase leads down to a hardworking showroom on the second floor, where designers can compare a multitude of workstation options side-by-side – peppered with archival objects celebrating more than a century of good design, as well as accessories available to shop downstairs at DWR and HAY. Designers will also find product highlights from subsidiaries Colebrook Bosson Saunders and naughtone. With space at a premium, open storage makes for a beautiful seating display and highlights Herman Miller's breadth of product with nearly 80 seating options on view.
Geiger
In contrast to the open plan of Herman Miller's two-story showroom, Geiger presents private office solutions, including modular casegoods, fully customizable workstations and architectural furniture within the context of sleek glass partitions by Maars Living Walls (Maars), the worldwide leader in interior wall solutions and a subsidiary of Herman Miller, Inc. The Geiger showroom delivers beauty and function through modern craft – elevated and executed to the highest standards with unparalleled precision, designed specifically for commercial interiors and office environments. Highlights include Geiger One, a new approach to casegoods informed by years of experience creating customized solutions.
Maharam
Recognized for its rigorous and holistic commitment to design, Maharam is a leading creator of textiles for commercial and residential interiors. As with other Maharam showrooms designed by architect Neil Logan, the decidedly minimal interior features a central textile display on a white partitioned table, highlighting an evolving field of color, pattern and texture. A carefully arranged rotation of large textile panels creates a monolithic backdrop of tactile focus. Textiles from Maharam's 2021 wool initiative are integrated into the showroom display, including Beck, a tailored plain weave with an extensive palette, on the Chadwick Modular Sofa in the guest seating area.
EDUCATING AND SHARING IDEAS
Adjacent to the Herman Miller Showroom on the third floor, the Eames Pavilion features a library, exhibition space and outdoor terrace, providing a platform for education, expression and open engagement. With a rotating exhibition schedule planned, the Pavilion opens this March with Herman Miller: A Way of Living, a book exhibition that chronicles the brand's storied history and more than a century of pushing the boundaries of design for home and office.
"In the stories we tell and the things we make, we're always looking to connect the company's timeless ideas from the past to offer industry-leading resources and thinking that shape the present and future," said Amy Auscherman, Head of Archives and Brand Heritage, Herman Miller.
DESIGNING FOR WELL-BEING
As part of the company's real estate portfolio and global footprint, Herman Miller Group at Fulton Market has aligned the design of the showroom experience to the concepts and features outlined in the WELL Building Standard (WELL), the premier standard for buildings, interior spaces and communities seeking to implement, validate and measure features that support and advance human health and wellness.
As the first furniture manufacturer to enroll and register its real estate portfolio in the International WELL Building Institute™ (IWBI™) WELL Portfolio program, Herman Miller leads the industry in the movement to promote health and wellness in buildings and communities everywhere, leveraging IWBI™ third-party research and a professional suite of tools to help empower change.
"Whether making production safer, setting a new standard in ergonomics, or finding ways to reduce our environmental impact, we always ask how we can make things better, and together we can," said Straker. "This is reflected not only in the design elements of the space itself, but also the operations and policies that guide the experience within the space and demonstrates our commitment to the overall health and well-being of our employees, clients and guests."
Herman Miller Group at Fulton Market is located at 1100 W. Fulton Market, Chicago, IL, 60607. Contract showrooms are open by appointment only. Herman Miller, HAY and Design Within Reach are open Monday–Saturday from 10am-7pm, and 11am–5pm on Sunday.
For more information, please visit https://store.hermanmiller.com/fulton-market-store?lang=en_US or contact media_relations@hermanmiller.com.
About Herman Miller
Herman Miller is a globally recognized leader in design. Since its inception in 1905, the company's innovative, problem-solving designs and furnishings have inspired the best in people wherever they live, work, learn, heal, and play. In 2018, Herman Miller created Herman Miller Group, a purposefully selected, complementary family of brands that includes Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Design Within Reach, Geiger, HAY, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, naughtone, and Nemschoff. Guided by a shared purpose—design for the good of humankind—Herman Miller Group shapes places that matter for customers while contributing to a more equitable and sustainable future for all. For more information visit www.hermanmiller.com/about-us.
SOURCE Herman Miller, Inc.
