BOFOOOOTHE BUSINESS OF FURNITURE | MAY 12, 2021 - OKAMURA FINORA IS CULMINATION OF DECADES OF DESIGN HARMONY AND INNOVATION
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The Business of Furniture | May 12, 2021
Okamura Finora is Culmination
of Decades of Design
Harmony and Innovation
BoF
o The Business of Furniture COLUMNS
May 12, 2021
Stephen Says 42
I Hired Them to Sell, Not to Smell!
Training & Development 44
Business Development Strategy
FINANCIAL
Industry Shares/Graphs 40
CALENDAR & MORE
Regional News 38
07 |Hutch Industry Cartoon 10 |Upfront 11 |Product Spotlight Upcoming Events 48
Marketplace & Classifieds 86
16 | Art Gensler, World- 30 | Kimball
Renowned Architect, International Office
Dies At 85 Sales Begin to Rebound;
An architect and astute Strong Outlook for
businessman who propelled Coming Quarter
a small practice into the
largest and most admired 33 | DIRTT Posts Loss in
firm in the industry, Art Latest Financial Report
Gensler is widely credited
with creating the blueprint
for how many professional
services firms organize and
manage themselves today.
36 | We Aren’t There 52 | Okamura Finora is
Yet Culmination of Decades
A 1985 article suggested of Design Harmony and
mobility would be better Innovation
supported if workers had The chair was designed by
technology that was the Okamura in collaboration
size of a cigarette pack and with ITALDESIGN, an
could fit in a shirt pocket. Italian design firm that
has helped create some
of the most beautiful and
iconic high performance
automotive designs.
50 PLACES Garmin Offices – Montreal 72 PULSE The latest industry 82 FIRST LOOKS The latest
happenings product introductions
The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021 5
Upfront
THE WEEK IN CONTRACT FURNISHINGS
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Okamura creates WORK MILL magazine in collaboration
with Forbes Japan
Okamura has created WORK MILL
lifestyle magazine with Forbes
Japan.
WORK MILL provides insights into
new work styles and workplaces
from around the globe to help create
new values from a business strategy
perspective. Its first publication
in Japan was in 2017 in Japan, and
the magazine’s fourth U.S. issue is
themed “Loved Company.”
“Loved Company” explores how
companies maintain strong relations
with their employees, customers
and communities through the
fundamentals of human emotion.
In the U.S. and Canada, the magazine can be ordered upon request and is also available to read
digitally through the online platform, Medium. Updated frequently with new articles directly
from the magazine, you can view it at okamuraglobal.medium.com. BoF
10 The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021
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Okamura Finora When looking at the world of office
furniture design, it is divided by regions.
is Culmination of Europe is known for its sleek, minimalist
designs. North America is known for its
Decades of Design meticulously manufactured products that
focus on comfort and ergonomics. China
Harmony and and many parts of Asia are known for
inexpensive and accessible furniture.
Innovation Japanese office furniture design is unique. It is
dominated by a couple of large manufacturers,
WITH FINORA, OKAMURA HAD DESIGN HELP a few of whom have made their way to North
FROM A FAMILIAR GROUP OF FRIENDS. THE America. The top company in Japan is Okamura.
CHAIR WAS DESIGNED IN COLLABORATION It exemplifies the best in Japanese design and it
WITH ITALDESIGN, AN ITALIAN DESIGN can best be described as harmonious.
FIRM THAT HAS HELPED CREATE SOME OF
Harmony can be found in everything Okamura
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND ICONIC HIGH
does, especially in the design of its new chair
PERFORMANCE AUTOMOTIVE DESIGNS.
— Finora. And while the company and its team
by Rob Kirkbride in Japan might speak a different language,
because of this design harmony, Finora speaks
volumes about Okamura and the products it is
building.
52 The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021
BoF o “We need to harmonize the interior design of the office or the other (work) environments,” said Ryo Igarashi, deputy general manager of Okamura’s workplace furniture marketing division. “Another thing is we have to think about ergonomics. It means that we have to care about the sense of touch or feeling, so we designed adjustments that I would say are more integrated to the styling.” With Finora, Okamura had design help from a familiar group of friends. The chair was designed in collaboration with ITALDESIGN, an Italian design firm that has helped create some of the most beautiful and iconic high performance automotive designs. It has also worked with Okamura on six of its iconic designs. Nicola Guelfo, the chief designer of Finora, wanted to combine all functions and styling into one sleek form. The flexible backrest of Finora flows down under the seat of the chair, creating a light, unified form. The mechanism and levers for adjustments such as seat height, reclining tension and seat depth are all placed neatly under the seat. That makes a chair that is beautiful from every angle. 56 The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021
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Another unique design feature is the custom panel on the
backrest frame. The panels are available in silver, black or white,
all with a gloss finish to contrast with the matte backrest frame.
The panels not only add an additional aspect of visual interest,
but they increase the customizability of the chair, too. This
unique feature evokes images of sports cars and comes directly
from ITALDESIGN’s automotive roots.
With the beauty of Italian design in place, the Okamura
Project Team went to work on what it does best — seamlessly
connecting all the engineering dots. Okamura’s team inspected
all of the components individually to ensure they met style and
strength requirements. The most difficult hurdle the team faced
structurally was extending the arms from the backrest frame
to maintain the sleek, uninterrupted form of Finora’s profile,
without losing any of the strength required of a task chair.
An immense amount of engineering effort was put into
connecting the arms to the backrest without exposing the
screws and structural elements on the exterior of the chair. The
beautiful lightness of the backrest is a significant characteristic
of Finora, which stands out in comparison to other conventional
office chairs.
The beauty of Finora comes from this simplicity. As any
designer knows, the appearance of simplicity can be very difficult
to achieve. Igarashi said designing a high performance chair like
Finora is similar to designing an automobile — both are very
complicated with many parts and pieces coming together to make
the whole. If those components aren’t combined perfectly, the
car won’t drive. Similarly, seating design fails when those pieces
don’t come together just right. “We are using many materials
and many products, and they all need to be harmonized,” he
said.
The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021 61BoF o To strike the perfect balance of beauty, strength and manufacturing efficiency, a flexible resin is used in the backrest to allow the chair to adapt to a wide range of postures. To ensure maximum comfort and reduce pressure on the thighs, each seat type — mesh and cushion — has its own unique features. While the mesh type is fitted with soft urethane foam underneath the mesh at the front of the seat, the cushion seat uses Okamura’s multi-density cushion, which utilizes urethane foam in three varying densities — the front of the seat is soft while the sides and rear of the cushion are made of firmer foam to help support good posture. Okamura’s engineering expertise is put to work even in places not immediately obvious. The design of Finora truly was a collaboration between Okamura and ITALDESIGN, according to Igarashi. “Having their knowledge and expertise in design and adding our know-how and knowledge in seating and our office furniture experience was very helpful,” he said. “So that harmony was important in creating this product.” Creating high-performance seating isn’t easy and takes some time. The typical Okamura seat can take two or three years to create, Igarashi said. Finora is a high-end, high-performance chair, said Ayumu Nagai, vice president of Okamura North America. “Where we’re normally strong is either the tech industry, tech companies, younger growing companies, a lot in California, but also we’re really doing well in financial companies and law firms, not because they just have a higher budget, but also because they understand the value of design,” he said. “They are also competing to hire the really good, tech-minded people.” 64 The Business of Furniture | Subscribe at bellowpress.com | May 12, 2021
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Like many Japanese manufacturers, Okamura has broad
interests beyond furniture. In addition to furniture, Okamura
makes store displays, material handling equipment and even
powertrain systems like transmissions for snow plows and
torque converters for forklifts.
The company was founded in Yokohama in 1945, taking the
name of its location in Okamura town. It started making garden
tables and chairs in 1948, its first foray into furniture. In 1950, it
started making torque converters for trains, cars and industrial
vehicles. It jointly developed Japan’s first post-war aircraft, the
N-52, with the University of Japan in 1953. In 1955, it began
production of the Type-36 office desk, an early form of today’s
modern workstation. In the mid-1950s, Okamura even developed
Japan’s first front-wheel-drive automatic car, the Mikasa.
It was the mid-1960s when the company really began focusing
on the office furniture industry, which coincides with Japan’s
rise as an industrial and technological powerhouse. Its office
products filled the offices and skyscrapers in Japan’s burgeoning
cities.
And the company continues to push forward the idea of
harmony in design with Finora and all of its products. BoF
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