Two Become One
Hi there again, it’s your friend, Amy here.You know in the interior design world, once in a blue moon we get some really piping hot tea to serve at the gossip table and today is one of those days. I know that some of you lovely listeners are interior designers and design professionals, so you have likely heard about this news last week, but a lot of you out there are DIYers and interior design fans so this might be this first time you are hearing about this whole situation, so I want to give as much background as I can
I mean this is juicy stuff, this is I think one of the craziest things that has happened in the 14 years of Ive been in this industry.
And Im going to give you the facts, just the straight info and then I’m going to tell you how I feel about it because I have a lot of thoughts and feeling about whats going on
So the headline is that two of the largest most iconic most competitive furniture companies have merged, or rather one has absorbed the other. I’m talking about Herman Miller and knoll which are two classic furniture companies, both of whom have been around for decades. This is 1.8billion dollar acquisition. Both companies are publicly held and traded on the nasdaq and the nyse so this was no small move when it comes to business decisions.
Let’s review a little bit about both of these companies, who they are and what they represent.
Herman Miller
Founded in 1905 in Zeeland, Michigan
Herman Miller the person was a Michigan business man who helped his son in law buy the company, originally named the Star Furniture company, which originally made mostly solid wood bedroom sets and pivoted to modern laminate furniture during the great depression.
Beginning in the late 1940’s Herman Miller commissioned designs from incredible talents such as Ray and Charles Eames, Alexander Girard, and Isamu Noguchi - which are all ionic mid century modern pieces still in common use. In the early 1960’s Herman Miller developed a lone of furniture called the Action Office that was heavy researched based and aimed to support the needs of the modern office - noting that unlike the open concepts commonly used at the time, office workers require both privacy and interaction. This pivoted Herman Millerinto the office giant they are currently.
Today, Herman Miller is on the forefront of research and new ways of thinking about the office and how we work, whether its design new styles of desks and private offices to innovating conference rooms, hm is a huge player in the world of commercial furniture. You may recognize Herman Miller’s Aeron chair - a desk chair that is marketed as the world’s most popular office chair and it sits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s furniture collection - iconic!
Knoll
Founded in 1938 in NYC by Hans Knoll
moved production to
East Greenville PA
Hans passed away - his wife Florence took over
Florence worked tirelessly to promote interior design as a professional pursuit, rather than a decorative hobby, and fused the idea of interior programming and planning- not just aesthetics, into the industry
Because Florence was so well networked, she brought a huge cast of characters on board to design a full catalogue of furniture
Knoll like its own museum of design classics
Notable Designers:
Anni Albers
Henry Bertoia
Marcel Bruer
Eero Saarinen
and of course Florence Knoll
Notable Pieces:
Barcelona Chair
The Tulip table
Womb Chair
Extensive Textile Line
50 pieces in MOMA
Knoll is completely devoted to providing workspaces with style and sophistication, and always a strong modern point of view.
Press release reads:
“This highly complementary combination will create the pre-eminent leader in modern design, catalyzing the transformation of the home and office sectors at a time of unprecedented disruption”
Herman Miller shareholders will own about 78% of the combined entity, while Knoll shareholders will hold abut 22%. The deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter 2021.
I thought this was so poorly timed belated April fools joke - this is like Coke buying Pepsi. Both of these companies really make their bread and butter via office furniture ie cubicles and open office design. But the press release said it - its sign of the times.
Because of the pandemic an because most offices have increased their ability to work from home, if not completely transitioned to 100% remote working, people have been saying the office is dead which I disagree with but I do think the way we design offices and the way offices function has to change in order to support the shift towards working from home. But the pandemic and the associated recession clearly has had an impact on these companies, with many their typical clients and major projects being put on indefinite hold in 2020.
Now this merging is amplifying a recent phenomenon in the commercial furniture industry, and this is a trend that I take issue with.
Both of these companies have a larger umbrella network of lots of other brands, smaller brands - some more residentially focused, some not - between the two of them there are 19 brands total - Herman Miller bought the retail chain design within reach in 2014, for example - and this is what I’m talking about - this is something thats happened within the past five ish years and has been getting more intense. Before - there were many companies to choose from now - larger corporate brands have been acquiring or “partnering” with smaller furniture brands and what was a landscape of options has become a smaller menu of four or five huge corporations.
Here’s the problem with this - when an office has been designed what the designer will do is pick one large manufacturer who is responsible for the bigger pieces in the space like the workstations or cubicles; a lot of times that includes the conference tables, all the chairs - if you’ve ever counted how many task chairs are in your office you’ll know that it’s a huge percentage of the furniture in the space. and then designers will be able to recommend other maybe newer furniture companies or local furniture companies for some of the smaller pieces in the cafés in pantry in the reception, as little fun pops that add visual interest. that’s where a lot of the customization and creativity comes in and an interior designer‘s knowledge base is put to use.
When these larger companies are acquiring these smaller companies they will really push you to use their “”partners” product. It’s very much an upselling strategy because of course one single company would love to sell you every scrap of furniture in the space your designing. Before, a designers selections for these smaller accent pieces wasn’t questioned because the larger brands had a limited selection of accent pieces, and it was understood there should be unique moments through out the space. But now that every large brand has 10 to 20 smaller brands under them, a designers selections are always scrutinized and they so often try to make it about price and cost effectiveness. If you buy everything from Mega company X your discounting will go from 50% to 75%! How could you say no that?
But here’s the thing, there are still a healthy handful of independent brands that are making awesome products, for great price points, and new companies are showing up all the time. And if a smaller brand is owned by one of the larger companies, and a certain project is using a different large company- the project is kind of shut off from these other brands. No one will say those brands cant be used but they will do everything in their power to discourage you from using them. And it stops being about what is the best product for the job, and it starts being about what is the best sales strategy for the furniture company.
It becomes more about this transactional business deal to feed these giant conglomerates the majority of the furniture in a project rather than about sourcing the right furniture for the job that’s going to yield the best design and us designers have been getting more and more pressure from furniture dealers, owners reps, our own project managers to use a full family of products rather than our knowledge base of the entire industry of commercial furniture.
Designers have to be able to select from the full extent of a product offering not to be limited to 10 brands or 15 brands or even 20 Brands. there are hundreds of furniture brands out there. An interior designer needs to be able to use their experience and expertise to select the furniture pieces that function correctly for the specific project and have the right look for the project rather than being caught up in corporate structures that are pushing us to use some thing because it’ll put more money in the pockets of the 1%. It’s not whats best for a design. This kind of one-stop shop mentality yields less customization and more offices that will look just like a single furniture brands showroom. It’s exactly the reason i discourage my clients from being those cheesy bedroom sets for their home - theres no life or interest involved - its just copy/paste. And all of this is going on in the furniture industry prior to the Knoll/ Herman Miller merger - this has been happening individually with probably the five largest furniture companies in the United States, and now these two companies that have their own house of brands their own collections and you’re merging them into this mega Frankenstein machine and frankly, it’s a potential problem because its limiting competition within this industry. It’s going to exacerbate a problem that exists in our industry and take it to the next level.
Now, what can be done about all of this? Its key for designers to push for:
Small
Local
New
Stay informed about costs, lead times, and customization
Think creatively
Hey, with all of the changes that are coming to the workplace post Covid, the need for these massive workstations and workbenches or even private offices is going to decrease and the focus is really going to be more on collaborative furniture settings that are open, allowing people to meet in a distanced and comfortable way and that really opens up the playing field to more independent furniture lines, because the furniture types are more varied. instead of having a sea of workstations you will have more small vignettes of seating that can be supplied in part of fully by smaller companies. can you imagine an office where no one has an assigned desk and in fact there are probably a minimal amount of desks. And the rest of the square footage is dedicated to informal and formal meeting spaces very similar to the way a coffee shop or a coworking space is set up.
There is certainly a percentage of office workers who NEED to go into the office for quiet, heads down work because their home environment is disruptive for one reason or another, but that will not take up the majority of office space in the near future, and even so, these work points will not look like the desks we are used to seeing in the office. From large phone booths to dedicated chambers of silence, these private, quiet focus rooms will be less of the rule and more of the exception.
