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July 2006
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"Less is more."

-Mies van der Rohe

Redesigning the Googleplex
Metropolis Magazine recently featured Google’s new headquarters and how it balances its utopian desire for transparency with its very real need for privacy.

In early 2004, as Google was preparing to announce the hotly anticipated IPO they knew their search engine needed to stay fast and relevant, which meant their stable of engineers had to do the same. So they turned their gaze inward, hiring New York workplace consultant DEGW and the L.A.-based design firm Clive Wilkinson Architects to reexamine and redesign the Googleplex, the company’s headquarters.

After examining the way employees actually used their space, the architects came up with a list of 13 different zones and arranged them from hot (“clubhouse”: pool table and lounge area) to cold (closed workrooms), depending on the level of interaction they encourage. Each floor of the building was divided into five or six flexible neighborhoods separated by “landmarks,” the shared public spaces that are the center of Google life.

Though the cofounders wanted an office that encouraged a work-life balance, it can be argued that this is just a twenty-first-century version of the company town, where work and life become hopelessly intertwined. But Google the company is being forced into maturity—by the IPO, by the fact that Web pages that don’t appear on Google might as well not exist, and by its sheer size, power, and influence. Deciding, as Google did, to complete just this one building rather than implementing the campus-wide master plan that they originally asked for was a decision to grow up on its own terms. For Google it’s another in a long line of rebellions that just might work.

Winner of a Best of NeoCon 2006 Gold Award
During the last twenty years HBF has become recognized within the contract furnishings industry as a leader in bringing to the marketplace innovative and award-winning designs. The latest winner is a Best of NeoCon 2006 Gold Award for the LOGICmeet Occasional Table Series, designed for use in formal and casual meeting environments.

Other new introductions include:
  • A new collection of lounge seating designed by San Francisco's Brian Kane
  • The Como Series, designed by Joe Ricchio, is a lightly scaled side conference series
  • The Ashton-Mercer-Fairmont Conference Series complements the casegood series by the same name and offers a choice of wood veneers.
  • The versatile Dialogue lounge chair features an integral task surface on the arm and a metal swivel base
  • The Mode Series is a collection of swivel/tilt seating applicable for numerous corporate environments


Fall 2006 Collection is here!
Joseph Noble’s textiles are classic, highlighting a contemporary style and a relaxed attitude and the Fall 2006 Collection is no exception. There are 8 new, beautiful fabric collections:


  • Hounds, shortened from “Houndstooth”, a mix of boucle and chenille yarns
  • Getty Chevron, inspired by a custom woven boucle designed for the auditorium at the Getty Villa in California
  • Rare, a true beauty and an instant classic woven exclusively for Joseph Noble in Switzerland
  • Ulysses, from Joseph Noble’s classic swirl pattern, rescaled and reinterpreted
  • Extinct, a continuation of Noble’s very successful Great Fake’s
  • Maelstrom, again from the classic swirl pattern. It’s the first time he has interpreted the same pattern in 3 (soon to be 4) completely different constructions
  • Shagreen II, the original has sold well over 10,000 yards!
  • Smooth, has the appearance of a glazed, aniline- dyed high-end leather

Joseph Noble launches new web site and email updates
Along with Joseph Noble’s fabulous Fall Collection, he launched a brand new web site and email updates that include an array of useful tools. His new site features all his beautiful fabric collections, a Media Center for downloading world-class photography in three different formats, a staff area for immediate contact information, and a link to both interactive and printable forms. On the home page, you will find their banner for Technology Leathers. Oh-so-chic!

All the best,

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Bill Meyer
Contract Specialities, Inc. (CSI)

phone: 954-389-1295

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