Showrooms and House of the Immidate Future

Attending showrooms was one important aspect of the study tour in Seattle, we had the opportunity to attend many including Knoll. Here we met the representative of Knoll and had some time to sketch furniture in the showroom. We also visited the House of the Immediate Future, which was designed with sustainability in mind.

During the Knoll visit, I learned a lot of office design, specially furniture and textiles. Knoll has great desks chairs which allow for comfort in the work place, which nowadays is more open and cooperative; hence furniture is designed around these specific needs. Walls are lower to allow communication in the work space, and storage space is maximized.

  These are some of the sketches in Knoll showroom.

One of the many visits in our study tour was the House of the Immediate Future. A prototype house honoring the 50^th Anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, which commemorates the houses of the future, latest technology.  This house is a display to showcase the work and passion that goes into building these houses as well as the energy-efficient aspects of the prototype home. One very interesting feature in this particular house is the “Wet Block,” a yellow block in the middle of the structure, where all the plumbing, and wet aspects of the house, connect to. This is very efficient as well as the thick walls filled with insulation to keep cold air entering the house. Big windows that run all the way to the floor allow natural light to come in the space, maximizing natural light and minimizing the use of artificial lighting.

House of the Immediate Future Exterior

This sketch shows the House of the Immediate Future's exterior, just behind the samller house, horizontal lines that go from top to battom of the side of the house can be appreciated, this is the Wet Block I mentioned earlier.

House of the Immediate Future Kitchen

This is the kitchen in the house; here once again we appreciate the yellow wall, the Wet Block. I like the white cabinetry it is very clean and interesting. The window right next to the kitchen allows a great quantity of natural light to come into the house, as well as the other windows in the hallway to the left. Do to the width and thickness of the window this could work as a sitting area or storage.