Bill Bouchey is an interior designer who focuses on designing innovative workspaces. He received his degree in interior design from FIT in 1985. Bouchey has been the design director at M Moser Associates for four years, overseeing a large team that designs workspaces for global clients. He believes workspaces should provide comfort and personal touches like homes. Bouchey cites a recent project for an advertising client in Asia where he designed a communal meeting space using a carousel theme with a slide and stone bleacher seating. He enjoys the creative problem-solving required to design original, authentic workspaces for clients with evolving needs and ideas.

1. Alumni Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology
volume7|number3|summer2014

2. ABOVE
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

3. 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.”
LEFT
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.
fitnyc.edu/hue 13
NickParisse’09

4. ABOVE
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.
BELOW
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

5. ABOVE
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.
LEFT
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.
fitnyc.edu/hue 15