The Challenge:
The three-story-high atrium at the entrance of the new La-Z-Boy® Furniture headquarters is meant to be a “Hub” or “Main Street” for the La-Z-Boy staff. It provides a work/café environment for the entire building while supporting cross collaboration and interaction between the different work neighborhoods. One of the challenges to the design team was how to add texture and warmth to the huge, open space.
The Solution:
“This new space is a stark contrast to the old facilities, which were a series of renovations and additions pieced together over 85 years, with plenty of offices but very little collaboration space,” states interior designer, Dorey Fox. “As a design team, we wanted to create a more modern, new century look.”
To help attain the look they desired in the atrium, the design team chose WOODWORKS Grille Tegular panels in a Light Cherry color from Armstrong Ceiling Solutions for the 6,000-square-foot ceiling. According to Fox, the wood atrium draws its inspiration from the original La-Z-Boy wooden patio chair from 1928. “The ceiling’s grille look is very similar to that of the slats of the chair,” she says.
She also notes that the ceiling swoops down at the back of the atrium near the top of a dramatic staircase. “It’s meant to engage the occupants of the space and to break up the flat ceiling,” Fox states. “It also ties back to the movement of the original La-Z-Boy chair.” The curved section of the ceiling was accomplished using panels with a flexible backer installed on a faceted grid system.
All the ceiling panels are custom 4'x 4' in size. “We wanted to use a traditional grid system and still work with the scale of the space,” she notes. The large-size panels allowed the design team to accomplish both goals.
The width of the slats are also custom. Within each panel, some slats are 2" wide and others, 3-3/4" wide. This variation in slat widths not only added to the aesthetic appeal of each panel but also allowed the design team to incorporate 4" wide light fixtures in the gaps between the slats.
Project: La-Z-Boy Furniture World Headquarters
Location: Monroe, MI
Architect: The Collaborative Inc., Toledo, OH
Products: Custom WOODWORKS Grille Tegular