The floor plan for Capital Holding, drawn in 1990, is the first layout showing the WorkPod, CubeOffice and Armature systems. Elements of the Armature concept were incorporated into their Management Center built the following year. As a WorkFurniture system, the CubeOffice was prototyped in 1996, the Pod in 1998 and the Armature various pieces in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2002. With these, we have created an entire system covering wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. A flexible WorkFurniture system that expresses architectural scale and provides easy user controlled flexibility.

At the Borgess NavCenter, the entire 8,000 square feet was reconfigured (along with sound, video and computer network) by a small team of Taylor KnowledgeWorkers in 3 hours. The goal has been for end-users to do this with three simple tools and no “expert” or “tech” support. As a test of this in a 1999 7 Domains Workshop, the participants walked in to an almost totally deconstructed space. They were charged with setting it up in two and a half hours from scratch. They succeeded.

The surprise with the Pod was that early users did not know how to use it. Originally, we built twelve and employed them in various projects. The response was divided. Half the people loved the Pod and the other half disliked it intensely (almost everyone liked the CubeOffice system). This did not surprise us but what did was that even those who liked the Pod had difficulty learning how to use it well.

Of course, I have wanted a Pod since I first developed the concept so I took advantage of this situation to make one at the Palo Alto knOwhere Store my home. I have been, for over three years, a working Guinea Pig for Pod use research.

In recent years the general acceptance of the Pod has grown. It is very popular now the big issue being affordability with the Paul Lyon’s version. The new Blackburn Pod will cost about half a much. It also accomplishes our goal of rolling as a single unit. As it is built from CubeOffice components it fits well within the entire system and production schedules. The completion of the Vanderbilt project in mid 2002 actualizes the vision and intent of the 1990 sketch. A 12 year development process from idea to regular production.

The Cube Office system builds up from a basic 12 by 24 by 24 inch module to complete “office” scale. The cube components can contain pull down secretaries, lateral files and storage units. An “office” can be taken down and erected some place else in a few hours with out leaving a mark on the existing built architecture.

A second generation (Foundation II Series) of this system has been developed and installed in the CGEY Atlanta ASE environment.

The CubeOffice System can be used to create stand alone shelving, workstations, storage systems, wall systems and Pods. It is flexible, moveable and structurally stable when constructed. It can be maintained and moved by the end-user eliminating the issues associated with scheduling and paying for professionals. It is the backbone of the 1990 concept.

To us, the Pod represents the basic amount of space and amenity that every KnowledgeWorker requires. Of course, there are several different ways to accomplish this utility and function. The Pod is one. The skin of the Pod can be fabric, wood or Plexiglas - or sections can be open. This facilitates great flexibility and adaptability.

A second generation (Foundation II Series 2000) of the Pod has been developed that allows the system to build up from one work station (a section) , roll in sections and as a single unit. The new version is made up of 50% fewer parts than the first and actually docks with our curved WorkWalls. The Pods can be arranged in clusters - or in villages as shown on the Capital Holding layout and indicated below. By using both sides of the Pod surfaces, high variety layouts can be accomplished that achieve remarkable density while at the same time creating spaces of great Prospect and Refuge and individual utility.

The Cube, Pod and ArmatureSystems are components that compose the layout indicated in the 1990 sketch. The layout, itself, can be accomplished in a variety of ways and adjusted, from time to time, as required. “Smart” furniture can “know” certain rules of arrangement and “recommend” layouts based on Pattern Language values, prior successful solutions and codes. Great density and utilization can be accomplished along with a human focussed life-workstyle - all from affordable, low volume manufactured components. The technology, means and methods that facilitate this are part of our Patent and Patent Pending IP.

The metaphor of streets, Alleys, neighborhoods, and so forth, creates a powerful specification in regards traffic flow and amenity. The strong architectural forms of the basic elements and armature allow a variety of different specific furniture solution-set clusters and “negative” spaces that make the niches for sitting areas, support tools, one-off workstations and small team work areas. Larger group areas are defined by Cube Office components and fold-out WorkWall systems in a variety of configurations. Prospect and refuge along with great variety and flexibility can be achieved on the horizontal plane. However, this is not enough. The constant flat, low ceiling - particularly in large spaces - is not nature to human consciousness. There is a different psychological sense in looking up and downward within an architectural space. This “sense” is important to certain mental states and, thus, to certain processes.

For years we have encourged clients to develop the vertical space of their environments. There are many reasons to do this. There are, also, several obstacles to it: codes, the limits of existing building structures, the perception that this costs more - the overwhelming paradigm of 8 to 10 feet ceilings as the “norm.” We accomplished significant vertical movement with the Orlando Management Center - 1985 (ceiling changes and floor platforms), AEDC - 1992 (ceiling changes and floor platforms) and the Palo Alto KnOwhere Store - 1997 (ceiling changes, second floor balconies and skylights). However, the most comprehensive use of vertical space was the 11,000 square foot Capital Holding project - 1992 (second level KnowledgeWorker and tecnology work-deck).

This Center has been in continuous use for 14 years. It has served three different “owners,” the Acacia Group, MG Taylor and, now, CNL. The flexibility and adaptability built-in to its layout has allowed it to accomplish three divergent missions without requiring modification. While capital intensive when first built, its durability and adaptive utility has netted a life cycle cost lower than conventional construction.

Most of the 6,000 square feet is open and adaptable - four large areas flow into one another or each can be closed individually or all at once. The three level ceiling and light coves accomplish three things: small areas are defined as part of the larger space (so that “place” is maintained with 6 or 60 in the space); the ceiling is free of the usual clutter and therefore “reads” as an active architectural element; and, the HVAC is delivered from within the coves and does not blow on people in the space.

The dome cost $20,000 and was considered a great expense at the time. This will be about 100 dollars a month over the period of the lease.

This simple “trick” of curved forms, low, medium and high ceilings, with the play of natural light - all interacting with appropriate dynamic rhythm - creates a space that draws people like a magnet. This area acts as the “center” of the 20,000 square foot space and turns what otherwise would have been a low, dark environment into a dynamic, exciting place to be. The dome with the first and second floor ceiling collars added less than one-half a percent to the cost of the project - netting a high architectural return on investment.

Budgets come and go - building last a long time. This building is forever altered and now has a value many times the investment. Spending money on “features” will not necessarily do this. The treatment has to be based on intrinsic human values and the way that people interact with space. It has to support the processes that take place within the environment.

In a world that increasingly builds bland environments lacking identity, brand and “sense of place,” people respond strongly and positively to strong architectural armatures, the use of natural light, fresh air as the weather allows (more often that supposed) and carefully selected high quality materials. This does not have to be expensive. The Palo Alto lease, including lease hold improvement and interior furnishings, is under $30 a square foot per year in a real estate market that had less than 1% vacancy, at the time of remodeling, and typically rented undeveloped, unfurnished space for more than this.

This created a variety of different spaces in what otherwise would have been a uniformly dull environment. The schema actually build a “building” within a building and allowed a progression of incremental environs as users moved in and down from the traditional areas surrounding it. While built in a corporate headquarters, and while being sensitive to the traditional detailing and materials (which were brought into the space), the Management Center “felt” like an off site experience and a world of its own.

The Capital Holding steel structure created an armature which acted as a conduit for electrical, LAN, multimedia and phone lines - and, supported the the KnowledgeWorkers deck from which the above photo was taken. The WorkWalls could be moved from one side to another - along with all lines - allowing the Break Out/Office space to open to another area of the Center. It was with the Orlando Management Center and this project that we laid the foundations for our technology and wiring strategies.

Throughout the 90’s, considerable technology integration was accomplished. Video, audio, computer, phone, LAN lines were developed into an adaptable “plug and play” system allowing multimedia capture, production and playback to become a real-time, integral part of the work process.

The next stage of this technology integration process involves building computer and multimedia technology into the WorkFurniture, establishing Center-to-Center RemoteCollaboration and RemotePresense, and developing the first generation of “smarts” into the system components themselves. This work is presently very high on AI’s agenda and is key to several aspects of our Patent and Patents Pending.

Most of the basic ideas that were put into product during the 90s came from my 60s, 70s, and 80s thinking. We built more, however, in this last decade than all the others before it. This allowed us a faster, more iterative, rapid prototyping process. The 2001 and 2002 installations became mature expressions of these ideas.

Even so, we are just getting to the level of component design and manufacture that we envisioned when we started. By our definition, we are moving to Level II with our process and environment components and Level I with our technical systems.

The level of component capability, that we are able to deliver today, allows a utilization of space and level of knowledge “manufacture” than can not be achieved without it. We are now able to produce an environment that utilizes Pattern Language principles, serves the full venue of individual, team and large group collaboration functions, provides greater personal space to each KnowledgeWorker than other systems, and overall, achieves greater space utilization than standard layouts using existing manufactured components.

All this can now be done at competitive costs and in a radically reduced design-to-move-in time frame. This cannot be accomplished by design - or even manufacturing - alone. While there are issues related to the design of architecture - this is not the major problem. The furniture manufactures are capable of far more progressive designs than the present market will buy. Clients and customers want more but maintain a buying-system that makes the creation of quality workspaces almost impossible. The total system and method by which this work is done is the “problem” - I discovered this upon my entry into architecture. I have devoted most of my 46 years of work to discovering - and inventing - a way that consistently produces another kind of result.

Getting to this “point of beginning” has taken 20 plus years since what is now MG Taylor was formed. Every step along the way was funded by a real client solving a real problem. Every piece and component went into a work environment dedicated in some way to creativity/collaboration augmentation.

The design team that did this work has been small. I started the process alone and was joined by Langdon Morris in the late 70s and again in the early 90s, and then the current members: Bill Blackburn (who now operates AI) since the early 80s, Gunner Kaersvang (1995-199), Paul Lyons since 1997- 2002). On the design-detailing and production end, Bill and Bryan Ross have been ad-hoc members of the team since 1987 with Bryan becoming full-time developing the new AI production facility starting in 1998. By mid 1999, we were collaborating, for the first time, with established engineers and designers from the industrial design and furniture manufacturing industry. Their knowledge and capability combined with our “alternative” approaches should produce a whole new generation of product and and a highly refined ability to deliver.

As of late 2000, AI was approaching the $3,000,000 (annual rate) business level and had attracted the attention of several of the large furniture manufacturers and architectural firms. It is starting to develop a variety of channels independent of MG Taylor, its clients, and the KnOwhere Stores. Production levels are finally reaching a scale and steady pace so that product quality can be maintained and a reliable supply chain established. The 2001 business slump cut oders considerably and has “distracted” the larger companies. As small as AI is, it has one of the most comprehensive, and integrated, lines of work furniture solutions and design services on the market today. And, it sells more of this new kind of furniture than many of the large manufactures. As we proceed along this path, we will build an integrated design/build/deploy-use supply chain that is deeply embedded in our larger ENTERPRISE. This will, no doubt, involve alliances with other companies - some of which are under way now.

Why do this? When we started MG Taylor there were no components that did what we needed - not on the utility level nor on the aesthetic level. More importantly, however, was our need to accomplish - through direct experience - the close connection between design-build-use. This is necessary for getting complex product design and intimate market fit. Because of our ability to integrate “lust-to-dust” we have been able to field solutions that multi-billion dollar organizations have failed to match. Lean production is useful, but it is Lean design/build that is necessary for true innovation. We have not been able, yet, to do this at any great scale. To do this we will have to partner with many new, large and small, ValueWeb members that have capabilities and core-competencies that we do not. This, however, is consistent with the Network Economy concept and our own organizational strategy.

When my Grandfather entered the Air Force (called the Signal Corps, then) they had three airplanes. One time, he showed me his first manual - it had a wood cover and was about 5 by 8 inches and three-quarters of an inch thick. It described everything that was known about airplanes: how to design, build, fly and fix them. When he left the Air Force after WWII, he could fix and fly everything in the U.S. inventory. During the War, in England when we were taking out the German oil facilities and ball bearing plants - at great loss to our own men and machines - Grandfather was a Master Tech Sergeant in charge of an entire base’s maintenance and repair. He and his crews were rebuilding B-17s overnight. Taking components from one and grafting them onto another, swapping parts, making pieces in the field - anything to keep the fleet flying. This broke every Reg there was - but it got the job done.

One reason that technology evolves so fast in wartime is because, besides being mission critical, there is very close linkage between design-build-use and the standards of performance are clearly delineated. Feedback is immediate and provides measurable success or failure. The plane returns or not. It completes its mission or not. The system is adequately sustainable or not. Recently when I was working with an Air Force group and they were wondering how to get better feedback from their “customers,” I suggested that they ask Saddam Hussein - after all, he was the end “user” of the system. A bizarre thought not without a little humor. It did cause the group to reflect a bit on what they were really doing.

We are just beginning to see - in this newly emerging postindustrial, global economy - this kind of linkage in ValueWebs and supply chains. Product improvement is both user-driven and “pushed” by a strong producer vision. Batch production is giving way to lean, mass-customization methods allowing for rapid development and evolution of products and services. The distinction between products and services is blurring. Design wins as we can see with the i-Mac, TT and Mini.

A whole new way of making and distributing things is being born. The KnOwhere Store, for example, is a market place that uses, tests, distributes product/services and provides feedback to the producer of those products/services. KnOwhere is not just a retail store, it is a physical and virtual market.

Making things and delivering them to a market is the best way to design. This is employing the “4 Step Recreation” and “3 Cat” Models as an OS for a complex ValueWeb. It involves, for us, using our product/service offerings as the factory for making them. We are intimately involved in the entire design, build use cycle.

My design work of the 90s was not just about the “what” - the product. It was about putting in place an “engine” of creation that could build the environments we wanted - which themselves, were “engines of creation.” This was, and still is, a bootstrap process. Multiple iterations to make the tool to refine the tool to make the tool.

This had to be accomplished with, essentially, on a self-funded basis. The total investment in MG Taylor is a few hundred thousand dollars and a few million in debt.

I have worked for over 46 years to redefine the design/build/use process but it has taken until now to get this new way installed - as an “OS” - and running on a steady basis in several organizations. With this tool in place, the design process becomes liberated and what can be built leaps an-order-of-magnitude in variety and complexity. The time to build is reduced an order of magnitude. The requirements of the market can be better met. Now, the real work begins.

The decade of the 90s has come and gone. The work we now have in progress will accomplish many of the elements indicated in the Capital Holding sketch. I do not see this work as the “end” - I see it as a minimum foundation for an effective future work environment. In reality, we are just getting in place many elements that should have been ubiquitous in the work environment long ago.

It is encouraging that this is finally getting done. It is somewhat discouraging that it took so long. However, one thing our society is good at is going to scale when an idea reaches acceptance. There are many producers working on their own versions of these ideas. Soon, the marketplace will be flooded with “new” alternatives. It will be interesting to see who ends up “owning” this new work paradigm.

When a new position is created, it acts as a “meme.” This “sets” the game, within which, all the variations are played out until a new game is created. The “office” - the workplace - is in the process of being recreated. Which concept of “office” gets on the “increasing returns” slope involves a critical competition. A competition of ideas, of mental bandwidth of decisional maker’s attention. It is not the money issue that matters so much as the total set of consequences that flows from the choices made and what is consequently built. How people think and work frames the range of solutions that they can see and work on. This in turn establishes the quality of what we do as a species.