Season's Greetings from bfi!

Wishing you all the best for this holiday season and a happy new year.

bfi and National Office Furniture Co-Host CEU Event

On Tuesday, December 17th, bfi and National Office Furniture hosted a CEU holiday luncheon in bfi’s Parsippany office. 11 designers braved the snowy weather as Kris Hochgesang from National gave an informative presentation on Performance Fabrics. 

It was wonderful time of networking and sharing of ideas on today’s office environment. Thank you to our A&D friends who joined us and a big congratulations to Nancy Kautz for winning our lock and key contest.

bfi to Provide Furniture for Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center's New Facility

BFI has been hired to provide, deliver and install all residential and outpatient furnishings for the new 60,000 square foot treatment facility for Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center on a corner site that is directly Across from the main hospital facility of their Fulton Division. This new five-story building will house several outpatient programs specializing in the treatment of people in substance abuse recovery.

In addition to the outpatient programs, there will be three floors of residential programs for up to 100 residents. BFI-New York worked closely with the end-user group to identify suitable products that met the overall design intent which is two-fold: Create a welcoming residential setting for the residents and staff, while simultaneously communicating a professional service delivery system.

Project completion is scheduled for early 2014.

About Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center:
For more than 120 years, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center has provided quality and compassionate health care to those in need. Today, Bronx-Lebanon is the largest voluntary, not-for-profit health care system serving the South and Central Bronx, with 972-beds at two hospital divisions, a comprehensive psychiatric program, two specialized long-term care facilities, and an extensive BronxCare Network of medical practices, including theDr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Health Center, that is now providing one million visits annually.

Brian Glickman Rejoins bfi

Brian Glickman

BFI-New York is pleased to announce that Brian Glickman has joined our New York Sales Team as a Sales Executive. Brian brings a wealth of solid sales experience within the contract furniture industry, servicing multiple vertical market segments. During the course of his career, Brian has professionally achieved results with a wide array of end-user companies, assisted the architectural and design community and developed meaningful relationships with commercial real estate brokers in the greater New York Metropolitan marketplace. Brian enjoys a wide spectrum of experience on both the wholesale-manufacturer’s representative front and the dealer distribution side of our business. Prior to joining the BFI–New York Team he spent the last (9) years as a Sales Vice President with AFD in New York, a Steelcase distribution partner. Brian resides on Long Island with his wife and children and will report to Bruce Stone, Vice President.

2013 Tax Benefits for your Business

The benefit of buying furniture this year. Do not hesitate to make last minute purchase decisions. Many solutions we have are available on quick ship.

VIEW 2013 TAX BENEFITS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Reworking Work

Truly global markets, seamless connectivity to people and machines, instantaneous access to information and ideas, a merging of life inside and outside the office, and the increasing creative and production capabilities of individuals—these are just a few of the trends coming together to define a new landscape of work. Read article.

Create your own Living Office

Herman Miller just rolled a cool little weblet that allows you to create your own Living Office Layouts. Check it out!

Mirra 2 by Herman Miller

Inspired by the evolution we're currently witnessing within home and office environments, Herman Miller once again teamed up with Berlin-based design firm Studio 7.5 to revisit one of the most innovative and top selling office chair designs of the past decade, the Mirra Chair. Read the interview at Cool Hunting.

The Irvine Company’s 225 Broadway ReadyNow Offices

officesnapshots.com

The Irvine Company provides ReadyNow office spaces in a variety of locations around the United States. Their 225 Broadway location was designed by Gensler, who is located in the same building. Read more...

Welcome to Autumn

An Office System That Turns Every Desk Into A Conference Room

Another great article on Public Office Landscape for Herman Miller. Read it at fastcodesign.com

Public Office Landscape by Fuseproject for Herman Miller

Yves Behar's San Francisco studio Fuseproject launches an office furniture system for American design brand Herman Miller at the Neocon trade fair in Chicago.

Called Public Office Landscape, the modular design by Fuseproject for Herman Miller aims to encourage spontaneous conversations and continuous collaboration between employees.

Rather than design desks for individuals interspersed with pockets of collaborative meeting areas, Behar wanted to spread collaboration evenly throughout the office.

Read the entire article at: Dezeen.com

bfi Introduces New Website

ELIZABETH, NJ (June 2013): BFI (Business Furniture, Inc.) proudly announces the launch of its newly redesigned, customer-focused website. The new site integrates the detailed product information and services customers depend upon into an easy to use design, that puts BFI's resources right at the web-users' fingertips.

The site (www.bfionline.com) provides more ways for potential customers to identify products for their specific functions, applications, and industries, while providing a comprehensive product search function for those more familiar with Herman Miller and other popular lines of office furniture.

Making for a better customer experience.

One of the major features of the newly designed website is its mobile-optimized website which provides visitors with a user friendly experience on all mobile devices and platforms (iOS, Android, Windows phone, Blackberry). Keeping the needs of mobile users in mind, the layouts are designed for smaller screens allowing BFI to lower the risk of losing mobile website traffic by catering to the tech-savvy customer who expects instant information access.

The mobile friendly design is easy to read and seamlessly navigate on mobile devices. The responsive designs have been developed with the latest HTML5 coding, allowing the site to be viewed in both portrait or landscape mode. Content is minimized to allow for quicker loading times and mobile detection technology will show the appropriate mobile or desktop version.

For over 65 years, BFI, has been a leader in furniture specification and furniture project management. With offices in Elizabeth NJ, Parsippany NJ and New York City, BFI is a nationwide resource managing product and service solutions, procurement, delivery and installation, furniture asset inventories and reconfiguration services and 24/7 on-line customer service. Representing over 200 office furniture manufacturers, bfi employs over 75 professionals serving a diverse customer base in the corporate, governmental, medical, educational, architectural and design and real estate sectors.

Can't Make NeoCon?

Can't make it to NeoCon this year? Take a look at what Herman Miller is showing. Lots of beautiful eye candy on their Herman Miller NeoCon page.

Keep Calm and NeoCon

NeoCon 2013 Begins!

Desk Exercises to Avoid Repetitive Stress Injuries

A healthy work environment starts with intelligent planning. This includes appropriate seating & desk solutions, ergonomical design, and creating a workplace that nurtures creativity. Intelligent Interiors can help with that. Additionally, there are many other things you can do to stay healthy at your desk. In this blog post, we decided to feature a post from the Lifehacker website that describes some desk exercises you can do to minimize repetitive stress injuries.

Simple exercises make a big difference (From Lifehacker.com)

Exercises such as neck and wrist rolls, take little effort but can help you avoid repetitive stress injuries. Leg and foot raises will help those parts from turning to jello after hours stuck in a chair. We found that simply tapping your feet can burn up to 350 calories in a work day, so chances are you can make a lot more progress with leg and foot raises. You may want to look into sitting on a ball, too. You won’t get a full workout at your desk or anything, but these little exercises will help you stay more active as the day goes by. Besides, you can always get in a 20-minute workout on your way home.

Here’s a neat little chart that illustrates some exercises you can do!

As seen in Intelligent Interiors

What is Herman Miller Showing at NeoCon 2013?

Take a sneak peek at all the new products Herman Miller will be introducing at this year's NeoCon which begins June 10th.

NeoCon is North America's largest design exposition and conference for commercial interiors, providing over 40,000 architecture and design professionals with nearly 100 CEU-accredited seminars, association forums and top-notch keynote speakers. Discover thousands of innovative products and resources for corporate, hospitality, healthcare, retail, government, institutional and residential interiors from more than 700 showrooms and exhibitors.

The Surprising Benefits of Sit-to-Stand

When the facility where Ron Reeves works was redesigned recently, there was only one thing he insisted on: a sit-to-stand desk. Although only 32, Reeves has three herniated discs and arthritis, something he discovered when he injured his back playing basketball.

Suddenly, sitting all day wasn’t an option. Not that he’d ever liked doing that, anyway. Reeves served in the Navy before going to college, and in both settings, constant movement was a way of life. He also played basketball and football and worked out regularly during those years.

“To come into an office setting and suddenly be so sedentary was daunting,” Ron says. He fidgeted his way through the morning and “by lunch I’d literally be bouncing off the walls.”

He knew that Herman Miller made sit-to-stand desks and requested one. It was awkward at first to be the only one standing as he worked, but it took only a week to get used to it.

Being able to switch from sitting to standing throughout the day helps Ron manage his back pain and release some energy.  That makes it easier to focus. His role in corporate communications involves a lot of time on the phone, and much of the time he takes those calls on his feet.

The only thing Reeves doesn’t prefer to do while standing is heads-down writing. On a typical day, he splits his time pretty evenly between sitting and standing. But there are some days where he sits most of the day. He chooses based on his energy level and level of back pain. And when he does sit, he’s lucky enough to be in one of Herman Miller’s high performance work chairs, Embody.

Sit-to-stand desks aren’t only for the super active or those who are hurting. Herman Miller is an advocate of health-positive work environments—environments that help you stay healthy, instead of just addressing injuries when they occur.

Dustin Verbeek, an e-marketing project manager at Herman Miller, doesn’t have any health problems; he just likes the postural variety that the sit-to-stand desk provides. He’s found it has other surprising benefits, as well. “Working standing up gives you a different perspective and helps spark creativity,” he says. “I’ve found that I also have more impromptu meetings. It seems like people find you more approachable when you’re standing up.”

A look at Ron's day:

7:00 a.m.: Ron arrives early, the best time to “get real work done,” and sits while setting his priorities for the day and responding to email. 4:00 p.m.: Ron also spends the last hour of the day sitting while he wraps up his work.

10:30 a.m: Phone calls, lots of them! But being able to move around as he talks improves his focus.

2:30 p.m: On the phone—and on his feet—again. In an open design like this, standing increases visibility and eye contact. Is it awkward? “Not for me, but I can see where it would be at first for others. You get used to it and you quickly see how it increases communication.”

Article originally appeared on hermanmiller.com

CBS News On Herman Miller and the History of the Work Place

Richard Schlesinger visits Herman Miller, the creator of iconic chairs and furniture, as well as the dreaded work cubicle. So what's in store for the workplace going forward?

Study suggests sitting is the new smoking

A recent study published in The Globe and Mail states that the sedentary life is killing us. The researchers found that the least active, essentially those who sit all day, had a:

• 147-per-cent increased risk of heart attack or stroke;
• 112-per-cent increase in the risk of developing diabetes;
• 90-per-cent greater risk of dying from a cardiac event;
• 49-per-cent greater risk of premature mortality.

Read the article here and watch the video, Sitting is the New Smoking.

bfi client wins World's Coolest Office award for Inc.Magazine

Pinnacle Foods, a producer and distributor of grocery store staples from labels including Duncan Hines, Birds Eyes, and other specialty brands, based in Parsippany, New Jersey was awarded a Coolest Office Award by Inc. Magazine. Click to see some photos of this office that bfi furnished.

Concrete Waffle Ceiling Stuns at New OFS Showroom

At the opening of the new OFS Brands showroom in New York last week, guests were floored by, well, the ceiling. The space accommodates four of the company's divisions—OFS, First Office, Carolina and Loewenstein. See photo highlights from the opening event hosted by Interior Design. +read article

The Untold Story of how the Aeron chair was born

FastCompany posted this very good article on how the Herman Miller Aeron chair was born.

"Almost everyone knows the Aeron chair as a high-tech design classic. But few people know that its true origins lie in a 10-year effort to create furniture for the elderly."
Read the article here. 
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671789/the-untold-history-of-how-the-aeron-chair-came-to-be

The Nala Patient Chair

When given the opportunity to design a better chair for patients, Herman Miller spoke with caregivers, patients, and other support personnel to find out what works and what doesn’t. They also consulted with ergonomists, physical therapists, and gerontologists to understand the recovery process. The result? The Nala Patient Chair by Nemschoff.

Nala’s function and materials meet the specialized protocols of patient-care environments. Incorporating ergonomic principles and innovative technologies from groundbreaking Herman Miller work chairs, Nala chairs deliver superior comfort and support.

Less Effort and More Rest

The patient can move with little effort and can rest at any point through the generous recline range. The back and seat tilt motion of the Nala Harmonic Tilt chair mimics the natural movement of the patient’s body. The backrest and seat pan open up as the patient reclines and tilt around the pivot points at the ankle, knee, and hip. Correct body support is maintained in all positions, regardless of the weight of the patient.

Comfort is King

For extend periods of sitting – the firm, flexible suspension is enclosed in a soft outer foam layer for responsive and even support over the entire chair. A sacral support keeps the patient’s lower back area relaxed and prevents slumping.

The durable, fully extended arms and soft front seat edge help patients guide and stabilize themselves when they are moving into or out of the chair. A barrier-free foot area provides enough space for the patient to stabilize him- or herself when getting up.

Healthcare-Friendly Fabrics

Nala chairs offer durable, antimicrobial, moisture-repellent, and easily cleaned fabrics that meet the performance and durability standards of healthcare environments. Instead of an institutional look, the fabric choices bring a contemporary, residential look and feel to patient rooms. Designers have five choices for combining textiles and colors so the fabrics are appropriate for medical patient rooms, surgical patient rooms, and in-patient rehabilitation patient rooms. Seat and back upholstery are designed to be field replaceable.

Useful Choices

The Nala Fixed Back chair is also available. It provides a comfortable 15-degree back angle. An integral handle in the chair back, as well as rear casters, can be specified to make moving the chair easier. An optional headrest pillow adjusts up to 9 inches; the edges curve outward to hold and support the patient’s head. An ottoman supports up to 350 pounds and is sturdy enough to use as a seat for guests or family.

Worker office space to drop below 100-sf in five years

Are you seeing small work spaces in your office? This article says you will. Agree or disagree? Post your comments below.
http://www.bdcnetwork.com/worker-office-space-drop-below-100-sf-five-years

8 Must-know Trends in Office Fitouts

Enabled by wireless technology, laptop and handheld computing devices, and high-tech tools like Skype, GoTo Meeting, and WebEx, today’s knowledge workers can work from anywhere, anytime. On any given day in a typical office environment, many workers are off site, their office workstations lying empty. Employers are capitalizing on this trend to trim office square footage and real estate costs.

Read More...

Why sitting too much is hazardous to your health

Video on msnbc.com: Doctor James Levine, who treats obesity at the Mayo Clinic, says Americans are sitting more than ever, and a daily workout isn’t enough to curb the effects of being chained to your chair. Levine says that...

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rock-center/50428556#50428556

Good for You. Good for Business Too.

When you give your body the support it needs to thrive, a funny thing happens: it can help your business thrive, too. Research shows that ergonomics have a real financial impact on you and your clients' business.

Read More about how a successful ergonomics strategy can impact your clients' bottom line.