10/08/2026
Interior designer Honor Swan is a tactile learner: true understanding comes from seeing how things are built, and how they function in their environments. Honor recently completed Steelcase’s six-session Designer Development program, facilitated by our partners at Frost Barber, which concluded with an immersive trip to the Steelcase Learning + Innovation Center in Grand Rapids, MI.
The curriculum went well beyond surface aesthetics, diving into workstation acoustics, electrical integration, ergonomic performance, and early-stage dealer collaboration. In Grand Rapids, Honor toured the active workplace, specialized healthcare and education showrooms, and the wood fabrication plant. Later, in the tactile learner's deram, she was able to assemble furniture firsthand.
The experience also brought a memorable dose of design history: dinner at the 1908 Meyer May House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in collaboration with Marion Mahony Griffin, one of the first licensed female architects and a important contributor to the Prairie School.
During yesterday’s firmwide Lunch & Share, Honor brought those findings back to our team. Her applied learning is already making an impact: she recently led a complete overhaul and expansion of our interior design furniture library to refine our specification and cost estimation capabilities, and she's even offered to audit how our team sits and uses our own office workstations. Seats forward, shoulders back!
