This year marks the 50th birthday of the office cubicle. It was the brain child Robert Propst, an academic, who spent three years developing the first iteration at the newly-formed Herman Miller Research Corporation. George Nelson joined the project to give Propst's ideas form. Open offices and screens weren’t new but Propst’s ideas were to do with a system that allowed workers to format their space as they wanted.
When Herman Miller launched the first system back in 1965, the Action Office 1, it was a commercial flop. Beautifully designed with lovely material choices, it had become more a finished solution priced for the executive market. Propst’s vision of a set of parts, a kit, aimed at the mass market had been lost.
Propst convinced Herman Miller to give him another crack, this time without George Nelson. In 1967 Action Office 2 was launched. "His vision was this sub-architectural system that would have infinite flexibility and would create that sense of place and purpose for the individual. It had to have the right price point and the ease of configuration and re-configuration," explained Mark Schurman, director of corporate communication at Herman Miller and someone who knew Propst. AO2 was a huge success and the Herman Miller office systems have been best sellers ever since.