Gunlocke Trio - Just in Time for Neocon

In advance of Neocon 2010, the office furniture industry's annual design expo, The Gunlocke Company has unveiled Trio, its newest line of office casegoods. Trio offers some insight into what we can expect in the executive offices over the next few years.

Lightly scaled and flexible, Trio also offers a prime example of the growing trend of mixed materials. Trio is available in multiple finish options, including:

•  11 wood finishes
• Eight plastic laminates
• Three painted wood finishes

Aside from creating multiple pallets for designers to choose from, the various finish options allow the product to be dressed up or down depending on the specific application.

For more information Click (HERE).

Is your furniture certified green?

The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA), has been implementing its "level" sustainability standards program since mid-2009, and has now certified over 200 office furniture products, according to a recent article on greenerbuildings.com.

As defined on their website, the level program is "a multi-attribute, sustainability standard and third-party certification program for the furniture industry. It has been created to deliver the most open and transparent means of evaluating and communicating the environmental and social impacts of furniture products in the built environment." In plain English, level was developed to implement an industry standard by which to measure and verify manufacturer's claims of product and practice sustainability. This will also go a long way to cleaning up the "green-washing" or misleading claims regarding the "green" story of certain products and manufacturers.

Industry leaders such as Allsteel, Gunlocke, Herman Miller and Steelcase, have already had a full range of products certified. If you are a specifier, or purchaser of office furniture, make sure to ask if the products you are looking at have been level certified.

For a list of products that have received certification, click (HERE), and to view the level website, click (HERE).

Things to think about for your next conference or meeting room...

A timely article in the San Jose Mercury News today regarding how new technology is making Video Conferencing easy and affordable (Click HERE to view article). I found the article timely because it ties directly into what we are finding as we work with our client's on designing their new conference and meeting rooms.

Converge Line of Conference Furniture by Gunlocke

Almost every conference or meeting room we have worked on recently has involved some level of integrating Audio Visual (A/V) components into the furniture. This is not difficult, but it is something that needs to be considered early in the process, and requires a "team" approach between all trades. Critical items that must be factored early in the design and construction process include:

• Determining where the flat screen T.V. monitor will be positioned, to insure that the wall has adequate backing to support the equipment.
• Confirming the total cabling requirements for the equipment, to insure that any required "floor cores" are positioned properly, and are large enough to accommodate the required cabling, and that the conference table is designed to accommodate the required hardware plug-ins.
• Determining where all of the equipment will be housed, to insure that either the furniture or mill work is designed to accommodate both the weight of the equipment and to insure that the furniture is properly ventilated to keep the equipment cool.

The best suggestion we have for our clients is to think about three years ahead. You may not be using video conferencing (for example) today, but think about where you will be in three years, and plan the equipment and the office accordingly.

Gunlocke Silea; furniture to aspire to...

Enough with the "value-priced" (read cheap) imported laminate furniture that has been all the rage during this recession (read depression). I wanted to use this post to remind everyone that high quality, American made, well designed furniture does still exist:

Click on image above for link

The Silea product line of executive wood office furniture from the Gunlocke Company represents everything good about office furniture today. Silea is flexible enough to scale for any office size, sustainable (available with FSC certified products and LEED IEQ 4.5 compliant finishes), and produced in upper New York.

For a cool video on Silea click HERE -

Gracile Lounge Seating, Newest Offering From Gunlocke

Gracile is the newest lounge seating offering from Gunlocke, an industry leader in wood contract furniture.

Gracile Lounge Chair

Gracile is available in one or three seat options, with upholstered or wood cap arms. An armless version of both lounges is also available.

Conceived by Shawn Barrett of Barrettype, the chair combines both transitional and contemporary design, and offers an ideal solution for a variety of different requirements.

For more information on Gunlocke, or the Gracile Lounge Chair, please contact your Sam Clar or CSG account executive, or email me at: john@samclar.com.

Gunlocke's Silea - Best of Neocon 2009 Silver Award

Gunlocke introduced its newest casegoods line Silea at Neocon 2009.

Designed by Mitch Bakker, principal of IDa Design, Silea was "developed to provide designers with the freedom to create innovative, appealing private office solutions, it features unique functionality and extensive flexibility of scale."

Silea won the Silver Best of Neocon 2009 for the Casegoods: Desks and Credenza Category

For a preview of Silea, click (HERE).

For more information about Silea, Gunlocke, or office furniture in general, please feel free to contact Sam Clar Office Furniture or the Commercial Services Group.

Award Winning Seating from Gunlocke

At Neocon 2009, The Gunlocke Company introduced Vili, a new line of flexible seating. Vili which won Gold in the Best of Neocon, can work in the private office as guest seating, or it can be used as a stacking chair (it stacks 5 high).

Vili Chair from Gunlocke

Vili can be specified in Upholstery, Wood, or Polypropylene, and is available in 2 frame colors, 9 plastics, and 13 wood finishes.

Gunlocke is committed to developing sustainable furniture, and Vili is made from high recylced content materials, is available in Low VOC models, and has models that have acheived SCS Gold Certification, as well as SCS Indoor Advantage USGBC LEED EQ4.5 .

Some Help in Calculating LEED Credits

In the past 18 months, nearly 100% of our projects have started out with the client or specifier asking us about the "green" factor of our products. With the desire for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification becoming more and more commonplace, being able to quickly and accurately provide answers has become a critical determinant to winning projects.

Within our organization(s), (Sam Clar Office Furniture and The Commercial Services Group), we are fortunate enough to have Rachel Leaverton, a LEED Accredited Professional (AP), on-staff to assist us in navigating the path towards a LEED certified project. In addition to Rachel, we have found that the Gunlocke Company has a great new on-line resource that can also help.

Check out Gunlocke's Green Calculator to quickly find out how Gunlocke's products can help earn LEED credits towards certification.

See How Sustainable Gunlocke's Converge Product Line is with the new Green Calculator