February 04, 2010
Benjamin Moore Designer Showrooms In 21st Century Interiors
I am so thrilled to see Benjamin Moore's Designer Showrooms featured in a fantastic new book, 21st Century Interiors, Edited by Beth Browne. Good call, Beth! The showrooms were fantastic to work on with Searl Lamaster Howe and they LOOK fantastic in the book!
The book is filled with 80 projects that tell the story of global design excellence in every category, including hospitality, retail, commercial, and office space. Our project was filled with equal parts of anxiety, excitement, and humor, as my design cohort Andrea Magno and I went through rolls of tracing paper, countless paint chips, and lots of endless conversations to figure out what this showroom was meant to become. We had certainly learned a great deal from our first Benjamin Moore Showroom in San Francisco (at the Design Center) of what to repeat and what to avoid! For example: Repeat hiring a phenomenal showroom manager like Rachel Elliott. Avoid hosting an opening and a major Aura launch party for hundreds of designers the same night! (Phew, I'm still tired thinking about that day!)
21st Century Interiors features the Benjamin Moore Showrooms in both New York and Chicago
Fast forward to NY and Chicago. Working with Pam Lamaster on our new showrooms in both Chicago at the Merchandise Mart and in New York at the New York Design Center was the perfect example of what a good architect/designer/client relationship should be-- respectful, creative, on time, and in budget. She and her team took our concepts and brought them to life in a big, big way.
Our goal was to share with the world an innovative way to think about a company that has been around for over 125 years. We set our sights on rethinking how color is viewed and creating a space that's inviting and serene at the same time. Our Color Technology team souped-up the space with customized lighting that alternates between various types of lighting at the touch of a button and an LCD so big that it will make you think you're in a real room when you use Personal Color Viewer to virtually paint away.
Take a look...what do you think?
All our collections are on display. That's over 3400 colors!
We used white and gray laminates and bamboo for the tables and counters. The floating ovals help absorb sound in the space. We maintained that the walls and finishes needed to be fairly neutral so our clients can easily see the colors they're selecting. Cloud White OC-130 was our choice for the showrooms.
We conceived these "color totem poles" that rotate to show 4x4 samples of every color in our collections. The great thing about these color totems is that they are modular and can be replaced if needed. The other great thing is that they're fun to spin around!
The specialized overhead light fixtures change light output to mimic various types of light. The gray on the tabletops helps our customers to see the color they choose on a neutral background. In the background there are actual paint chips suspended between translucent 3Form panels that give the effect of floating color.
Many design buildings are exclusively to the trade, but do open their doors to everyone for some events. If you're in Chicago, New York or San Francisco, please try to stop in yourself and see design excellence come to life. Beth (Chicago), Rainy (New York), and Rachel (San Francisco) would love to see you there!