The workplace of the future will include open spaces, innovative technology and designs and ideas from Cal State Long Beach’s Bailey Rehmann.
Rehmann, a CSULB interior design major, is the first interior design student from California to place in the NEXT Steelcase Design Competition.
Going up against 90 other schools and over 800 other entries, Rehmann was one of five finalists chosen.
The competition was to design the office of the future: one that successfully mixes work, sharing ideas and play while introducing a work environment that strays from the traditional small, cramped desks and cubicles office.
Rehmann’s main idea of the future workplace included a mezzanine, a loft area dividing the top half of the floor from the bottom half. The mezzanine allows for people on the top part to get a clear view of the layout of the building and encourages a more communicative work environment.
“[The mezzanine] gives you more availability to look down and see … how [people] will move through the space and appreciate the view,” said Rehmann.
Steelcase is an architectural and design company that was established in 1912. Their goal is to come up with innovative designs for work spaces that mix the past, present and future and turn “insights into innovations that unlock the promise of people at work,” according to their website.
All entries given to Steelcase are turned in anonymously, allowing the judges to choose the winners while avoiding biases and giving lesser known schools in the designing industry a fair chance.
As a semi-finalist, Rehmann was flown to Grand Rapids, Michigan, the headquarters of Steelcase, and presented her designs to a board of judges that consisted of the head of companies such as Gensler, an integrated architecture and designing firm; and Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh McDowell, a sustainable architecture firm. She was also gifted an office chair from Steelcase that she got to design herself.
In Minnesota, she joined the four other finalists from Virginia Tech, Purdue, University of Minnesota and University of Mississippi.
Rehmann heard about the competition through her professor, who assigned the competition entry as a four-week assignment. In order for CSULB to have their students enter, the interior design program had to petition to qualify. This cut down on the number of schools qualified to enter and assured a level of skill from entries.
Coming from CSULB, Rehmann not only had less money and resources at her disposal than other schools competing, but also a significantly smaller window of time. While most other schools had six months to get their designs together, Rehmann had only five weeks. This is because while most schools choose the competition as their one project for the semester, Long Beach has three projects in total in the same time frame.
“Once I got past the nervousness I felt like … let me show you guys why Long Beach is awesome because we didn’t have six months and we didn’t have all these resources and we still totally contributed,” Rehmann said.
During that time, Rehmann had to do research, come up with original ideas and turn her sketches into computer designs. This was the first time Rehmann’s designs had made it onto a computer as she usually sketches all her work. With the small amount of time and limited experience in computer designs, Rehmann was sure she was not going to place.
“No one from California has ever won before so I was like ‘no, it’s just not going to happen,’” said Rehmann of her surprising win.
Rehmann was in a Chicago museum when she got a call from her cubby-mates, who share the small cubicle space with her in the design studio at Long Beach. She took the phone call while standing in the middle of a quiet crowd and had to immediately hang up the phone. While she was away, her classmates and professor celebrated the unexpected victory.
“Bailey is one of those people who always carries and sketchbook and a pen with her,” said Andrea Alvarez, junior interior design major.
Rehmann’s palm sized sketchbook held all her designs that went into the competition, full of ripped out pages and months of work from before the competition even began.
“We call it the romance of our industry,” said Rehmann. “A lot of people are losing their hands and ability to do hand drawn sketches. They’re not pretty and they’re not precise, but you get [the idea].”
The professors of the interior design program encourage students to communicate through sketches rather than through computers. This small detail of the program set Rehmann apart from others in the competition. She also credited Long Beach for giving students a personal space of their own in the design department to get their work done.
“We have keys to the building and we can come in and work all night or all weekend … this is our space for the entire year,” Rehmann said. “We’re literally here all the time and we’re learning how to get along with others in a real work experience.”
These experiences may soon come in handy, since Rehmann was given multiple business cards from major companies following the competition.