VIVID Design Rotterdam presents:

Hella Jongerius My Soft Office

November 18th 2001 - January 13th 2002

Hella Jongerius has created the concept of
'My Soft Office' for the exhibition Worksperes in the Museum of Modern Art [MOMA], earlier this year in New York. 'My Soft Office' explores the workplace of the future and the role of designers to develop effective solutions for the changing demands of working conditions.

The exhibition at VIVID however, will be unique:

To demonstrate the concept of the 'My Soft Office' Hella Jongerius will relocate her entire office to the exhibition space of VIVID Design in Rotterdam!
JongeriusLab will be at VIVID for a period of eight weeks, giving 'Hella Jongerius, My Soft Office' a very literal meaning . The combination of person, practice and products will stage an unforgettable experience.

The Soft Office was commisioned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York for the Workspheres exhibition which opened in February 2001. The brief was to design a home office. First of all, I looked what kind of home offices my friends had: usually an iMac on the kitchen table. I decided to design a marriage between furniture and technology by combining technology we use every day, like typical screens and keyboards, with domestic situations such as sleeping and eating. The parallels with the rest of my work are the unorthodox use of materials, applying them to new fields and working with archetypes. Also, I wanted to add the human touch (you could call it craftsmanship) to technology, because all computer products still smell like nerds. A computer offers so much more than suffering in an office on stupid work projects. All the information on hobbies, entertainment etc is available on computers and fun to do at home. For me, My Soft Office is still in its first stage: I would really like to merge the technology more with materials and objects.

I am working on an upholstery textile project with Maharam (the US contract textiles group); a wood and leather project in the Fervela, Sao Paolo, with my students and local craftsmen; a crystal chandelier for Swarovski Australia; the first prototype of a Chat-bench for public spaces and the interior of an self-sufficient house. Last week, I moved with my studio to a gallery for two months. I will work there while I study the follow up of My Soft Office. I¥m curious to discover what working in a public space will be like. Although we all do it with our laptops on trains. The seams in my ceramics reveal the process of production process and my own working process. My private life always overlaps with my working life. When do you speed down? And speed up? What new products do I want to have? I will also be making homemade soup in my office in the gallery, I am curious to know if it will taste different.

Hella Jongerius