Alumni Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

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Milliken & Company, Spartanburg, SC When materials and textile giant Milliken wanted to bring together its corporate flooring division under one roof, M Moser responded with a hive-like system of hexagonal cubicles from Herman Miller, which Milliken happens to supply the woven materials for. The plan gives employees their own spaces and creates informal areas for impromptu meetings. A boat used in team rowing was hung from the ceiling to represent teamwork.

The Office Bill Bouchey, Interior Design ’85, creates

innovative workspaces

By Dan Rubinstein

hue | summer 201412

Considering how much time people spend at their jobs, it’s surprising that workspace design doesn’t attract attention like its more glamorous residential cousin—and designers of work environments tend not to get big awards or their own TV shows. But Bill Bouchey, the design director of M Moser Associates’ New York office, finds his prolific, 30-year career of crafting spaces unreservedly fulfilling. “I’ve always gravitated to the workplace because it’s where you live most of your life,” Bouchey says. “I want my workplace to be as satisfying as my home.” To him, offices are no longer simply functional spaces. Instead, they need to include all the comforts and personal flourishes that you’d expect in a residence.

Raised in Lansingburgh, NY, a small town near Albany, Bouchey always dreamed of living in New York City. FIT’s faculty and its conceptual, holistic approach drew him to the Interior Design program, where he studied with Julius Panero, Martin Zelnik, and Michael Altschuler. “The faculty had a large number of architects, and the emphasis was on problem-solving with a three- dimensional approach that emphasized emotional connections and a sense of place,” he says. Bouchey has been with M Moser for four years, a global design and architecture firm, overseeing a large team of creatives. (The firm has more than 600 employees worldwide.) He stresses the importance of the discovery process, with today’s clients more interested than ever in reflecting their brands through their offices.

“I feel passionate about understanding how design can support, enhance, improve, and match a client’s business objectives,” he says. He cites a recent advertising client in Asia and their need to make a communal meeting space both func-tional and memorable for visiting clients. “We used the theme of a carousel; there’s a slide that cascades down, adjacent to a flight of stairs,” Bouchey says. “The stair element is expanded into the design to be like stone bleachers, so it could also be used as a place for people to sit.”

Recent trends have driven designers of corporate spaces to be extra-creative: the amount of square footage per employee is shrinking, more and more space is being dedicated to media and technology, and clients themselves are more design savvy than ever. “They’ve all been online and done their research. Even if they’re not trained as architects, they almost always come in with ideas,” he says. “It’s a real challenge to come up with something original, authentic, and fresh, so you’re not repeating something somebody else has done.”

But this only fuels Bouchey’s love of creative problem-solving. “The beauty and the joy of it is that you get to collaborate with a variety of creative and technically interesting brands.” His advice for the next generation? Trust your gut and learn the delicate dance of working creatively with a client. “When you combine that with being able to generate ideas, it’s pretty powerful. And it’s pretty satisfying, too.”

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Milliken & Company, NYC The reception area of Milliken’s Manhattan office and showroom is flooded with light from windows. Bouchey had the floor painted white to create a canvas for dem- onstrating the company’s various textile offerings. To balance out the busy patterns, amorphous seating from Moroso is uphol-stered in calming, solid colors.

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M Moser Associates, NYC Bouchey’s firm, M Moser Associates, has a nonhierarchical structure and a collaborative, collegial atmosphere, so he designed its New York headquarters with an open plan: employees all have the same amount of desk space and no private offices. The open breakout meeting space is given extra personality with a white column employees are encouraged to write on.

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Nucraft, Chicago

For the Chicago showroom of Nucraft, a manufacturer of wood furniture used in corporate offices, M Moser was challenged to counterbalance the cold image of the company. Bouchey introduced “rough, textured elements to create a dialogue” between the space and the “very sleek and buttoned-up” goods the brand is known for. A trellis made from reclaimed wood is used as a canopy to highlight new products and create a focal point.

hue | summer 201414

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Hudson Rouge, NYC When designing the main collaborative space for advertising agency Hudson Rouge, Bouchey and his team created an open, flexible floor plan. The design allows for meetings of various sizes and for the use of an overhead projector. “It’s not dictatorial,” Bouchey says. Colorful stools, a reclaimed-wood table, and a variety of seating options balance out the rest of the clean-lined office.

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National Alzheimer’s Association, NYC For the kitchen at the corporate training center for the National Alzheimer’s Association in New York, M Moser made an effort to put caregivers at ease. “The association didn’t want it to look corpo-rate,” Bouchey says. “They asked for solutions to make it warm, hospitable, tailored, and sleek.” They paired purple—the organization’s official color—with cork flooring, high-backed lounge chairs, and residential lighting fixtures.

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