Atlas Desk

Tim Wallace

To create a new height adjustable desking solution, Herman Miller, a long-standing leader in workplace innovation, approached Tim Wallace. They immediately had the idea to work with the entire office environment. "For me it wasn't just about creating a single desk - there are so many examples of that," Tim explains. "The real challenge comes when you start adding more of those single desks and making them fit into the space. I saw an opportunity to create a system that would really benefit the workplace now and in the future."

Realizing that chasing his dream of being a guitarist in a rock band at the age of 18 might be "a bit tricky," Tim Wallace instead chose to pursue a slightly more stable career in design. Following his education at Middlesex University and the Royal College of Art, he has built an international reputation as one of the leading designers of office and healthcare furniture. After completing his Master's degree at the Royal College of Art, Wallace gained over a decade of experience working for companies in the UK, Europe, China and the US. In 1996 Wallace founded Tim Wallace Design and since then he has developed a strong international client list and a series of products unprecedented in their success. His designs are produced all over the world and include award-winning products such as Abak Environments for Herman Miller.

Working with so many different cultures sparked Wallace's love of exploration, which serves him well as a designer. Wallace says, "A new solution is rarely obvious, but you greatly increase your chances of successfully solving a problem if you have a good understanding of what's involved. And to do that, you need to look at the problem from a perspective other than your own."
Wallace further explains: "It's very easy to get seduced by a nice little sketch, but often the product image is the last part of the process. If you do this too early, you might miss the opportunity to discover something new."

Design is about solving fundamental human problems
Founded in 1923 (its predecessor, Star Furniture Company, was founded in 1905), Herman Miller bet its survival on contemporary furniture during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This gamble was a huge success, and in 1945 Herman Miller stopped producing traditional furniture and focused its business on contemporary furniture, which would later be called modern furniture. In 1960, the company began exploring the true needs of office workers and the needs of companies and organizations. It realized that office productivity was a major issue in business. The "Action Office" that was developed in this way became the standard for subsequent office systems.
Herman Miller considers innovation to be the result of research, not a goal. Innovation comes from research into customer needs, exploration of materials and processes, and design in response to social and economic innovation. Of course, designers add inspiration on top of that. Charles and Ray Eames' plywood chairs, Robert Propst's Action Office, Bill Stumpf's Ergon and Aeron chairs, and Ayse Birsel's Resolve system are all born from such interactions. What connected them to Herman Miller is the shared belief that "design exists to solve fundamental human problems." It is the passion to create new designs from research into the human body structure and the environment surrounding humans, rather than designing for the sake of design.
The quality control department repeats the industry standard 100,000 seat tests 1 million times. The unparalleled research and development department develops from the material, and the manufacturing department realizes the most advanced manufacturing process. In all of these, Herman Miller never forgets its idea of ​​creating new designs by researching the human body and the environment. Herman Miller's products are the inevitable form that was born from researching the problems related to the act of sitting. In order to save the earth's resources and reduce the environmental burden, Herman Miller's products strive to improve the durability and reliability of its products, and the product warranty period for work chairs is 12 years. Another aspect of innovation, "taking risks," is equally important. Herman Miller strives to always maintain a willingness to take risks. As the company expands and the responsibility for capital increases, the pressure to minimize risk has also increased. However, Herman Miller continues to take risks to bring out new products that it is confident will be successful - and sometimes products with revolutionary qualities that will change the times.