Heller at Bell Works
Where Modern Design Meets Architectural Legacy
Tuesday, Oct 7, 2025
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Heller at Bell Works: Project Showcase
When Eero Saarinen designed the Bell Labs building in 1962, he created a masterpiece of mid-century modern architecture—a place where innovation was born. Today, Bell Works lives on as a vibrant "metroburb" in Holmdel, New Jersey, blending technology, culture, and community. And where innovation thrives, Heller furniture belongs.
Client: Bell Works (Inspired by Somerset Development)
Location: Bell Works, 101 Crawfords Corner Road, Holmdel, NJ
Architect (Original): Eero Saarinen
Interior Design: NPZ Style + Décor, led by Paola Zamudio
Featured Collections: Fortune Chair, Frank Gehry Collection, Vignelli Collection, Bocca
The Fortune Chair and The Gehry Bench at Bell Works
Color Defines Context
At Heller, we believe modern design belongs everywhere—from penthouses to warehouses, lobbies to playgrounds, indoors and out. Nowhere is this philosophy more evident than at Bell Works, where our furniture transforms Saarinen's iconic atriums into dynamic spaces for work, rest, and connection.
The design team at NPZ Style + Décor selected Heller pieces specifically for their ability to complement the building's mid-century bones while bringing contemporary energy through bold color and sculptural form. With simple changes in hue, each piece shifts from professional to playful, serious to joyful—exactly what a modern metroburb demands.
Built for How People Actually Live
Fortune Chairs
in Tomato, Licorice, and Wheat cluster across the central atriums, inviting collaboration and spontaneous connection. Their fortune cookie-inspired form brings whimsy to workdays.
Frank Gehry Easy Chairs and Benches
anchor outdoor terraces and collaborative zones in Silver and White, their architectural silhouettes echoing the building's modernist heritage while offering genuine comfort for reading, working, or simply watching the world go by.
Gehry Coffee Tables
in Yellow and Red ground seating vignettes throughout the space, their faceted forms reflecting light and shadow like miniature Gehry buildings themselves.
Design That Works as Hard as You Do
This isn't furniture staged for a photo shoot. This is furniture earning its keep in one of America's busiest mixed-use environments—withstanding New Jersey weather, heavy foot traffic, families with children, and the daily demands of a thriving business community.
Every piece incorporates Worry Free Plastics technology, is 100% recyclable, and is Made in the USA. Because at Heller, sustainability isn't a compromise—it's woven into the DNA of design built to last generations.
Key Outcomes:
Created flexible zones that adapt from professional to social use throughout the day
Enhanced the biophilic vision of the space with weatherproof furniture that bridges indoor and outdoor environments
Reinforced Bell Works' identity as a destination for both work and culture
Proved that durable contract-quality furniture can be beautiful, bold, and endlessly versatile
Bell Works:
Where Innovation's Past Meets Sustainability's Future
When Eero Saarinen designed the Bell Labs building in 1962, he created more than a masterpiece of mid-century modern architecture. He built a cathedral for innovation—a place where the transistor, the laser, information theory, and countless other technologies that shaped the modern world came to life.
Today, Bell Works honors that legacy as a "metroburb"—a living, breathing ecosystem where technology companies, cultural venues, restaurants, and community spaces converge. It's a place that asks: what does modern innovation look like now?
For Heller, the answer is simple: innovation that leaves things better than we found them.
Why Bell Works Chose Heller
When NPZ Style + Décor specified furniture for Bell Works' expansive atriums and outdoor spaces, they needed pieces that could:
Withstand heavy use in one of America's busiest mixed-use environments
Transition seamlessly between indoor and outdoor zones
Weather New Jersey's seasons without fading, cracking, or degrading
Define flexible spaces that shift from professional to social throughout the day
Honor Saarinen's architectural vision while bringing contemporary energy
But there was something else. Something that mattered deeply to a space built on a legacy of technological breakthroughs:
Innovation that solves tomorrow's problems, not just today's.
The Plastic Problem We All Face
Here's an uncomfortable truth: durable plastic furniture has always presented a paradox.
The very qualities that make it perfect for public spaces—weatherproof, low-maintenance, nearly indestructible—also make it an environmental challenge. Traditional plastic furniture can last decades in your space, but thousands of years in a landfill. Even worse, as it slowly breaks down, it sheds microplastics that contaminate soil, water, and eventually, our bodies.
For years, we at Heller wrestled with this reality. Our founder Alan Heller pioneered the use of plastics in high design precisely because the material could be molded into beautiful, functional forms and offered affordably. But we knew we needed to do better.
A Different Kind of Innovation
In 2022, shortly after acquiring Heller, our CEO John Edelman had what he calls a "360-degree transformation" in his thinking about plastic.
"At Design Within Reach, I used to welcome every visitor with a plastic water bottle," he recalls. "I thought it was the most gracious gesture. Later, I learned about the perils of microplastics. From day one of owning Heller, sustainability became our priority."
That priority led us to Worry Free Plastics—a technology that fundamentally reimagines what happens to furniture at the end of its life.
The Most Sustainable Modern Indoor/Outdoor Furniture
How Worry Free Plastics Actually Works
During Manufacturing: An organic enzyme is embedded into our proprietary polymer material during the manufacturing process.
During Use: The enzyme remains completely dormant. Your furniture maintains 100% of its original properties—the same strength, the same weather-resistance, the same beauty. It functions perfectly indoors and outdoors, year-round, in any environment, for decades.
At End of Life: Only when disposed of in an oxygen-free environment (like a landfill or at the bottom of the ocean) does the enzyme activate. Once activated, microorganisms completely consume the polymer in fewer than five years.
The Result: Instead of microplastics that persist for millennia, you get nutrient-rich soil. The furniture literally feeds the earth instead of poisoning it.
100% Regenerative
Leaves behind nutrient-rich soil rather than harmful microplastics.
Indoor & Outdoor
Function perfectly indoors and outdoors, year-round, in any environment.
Smart Technology
Stays dormant, activating only if the product is disposed of in an end-of-life environment.
Lasting Durability
Our products maintain 100% of their original properties and generational durability
Why This Matters at Bell Works
At a place built on the legacy of technological innovation—where the transistor was invented, where scientists developed technologies that fundamentally changed human civilization—the choice of materials carries symbolic weight.
Bell Works doesn't just house innovation. It embodies it.
Every Fortune Chair in the atrium, every Gehry Bench on the terrace, every Bocca sofa in a collaborative zone represents a commitment to innovation that considers the full lifecycle of design. Visitors encounter furniture that:
Performs flawlessly today (weatherproof, comfortable, beautiful)
Lasts for generations (contract-quality construction, UV-stable materials)
Returns to earth responsibly (100% regenerative, microplastic-free at end of life)
This is design that honors both the past's lessons and the future's needs.
The Bigger Picture
The furniture at Bell Works will likely serve visitors for 20, 30, maybe even 50 years. But we designed it thinking about what happens in year 51.
It's about creating objects beautiful enough to cherish, durable enough to last, and responsible enough that when their long service finally ends, they give back rather than take.
Because sustainability isn't about making less. It's about making better.
At Bell Works—a building that witnessed the birth of so many technologies that define modern life—Heller furniture demonstrates that innovation's next frontier isn't just about what we make.
It's about how we make it matter.
Shop the Bell Works Collection