Integrated furniture system

A method of dividing a building space defined by existing building walls, such as drywall covered walls, and of facilitating routing of utilities throughout the building space, comprising steps of:

• providing a wall-covering system including a framework of horizontally extending mounting channels with a first side adapted to stably engage the existing building walls and constructed to be secured thereto, and a second side for supporting first cover panels, and further including a plurality of the first cover panels releasably attached to the second side for covering the framework and for at least partially covering the existing building wall, the framework forming at least one horizontally extending first raceway with the first cover panels on the existing building wall so that utilities can be flexibly routed in the wall-covering system across the existing building wall;
• providing a freestanding partition system including partition panels with partition frames arranged and interconnected to subdivide the building space into office areas and including second cover panels releasably attached to opposing side faces of the partition frames for covering both side faces of the partition frames, the partition frames being characteristically internally open so that the utilities can be flexibly routed along the partition frames under the second cover panels;
• attaching the wall-covering system to the existing building wall by attaching the mounting channels to the existing building wall;
• positioning the partition frames in a desired arrangement in the building space to define office areas, including positioning and securing one end of at least one partition panel abuttingly against the wall-covering system;
• routing utilities throughout the building space and to the office areas by routing the utilities from the existing building wall into the framework and continuously along the framework and into the partition frames;
• covering the framework with the first cover panels;
• and
• covering the partition frames with the second cover panels.

An integrated prefabricated furniture system for fitting-out building space of the type having a generally open plan interior defined by fixed walls, comprising:

• a demounted architectural wall system for covering the fixed walls of an associated building room, including:
• a plurality of horizontally extending mounting channels for attachment to the fixed walls along upper and lower portions thereof, some of the mounting channels being attached to the fixed walls at a position vertically in between the upper and lower portions thereof, adjacent a predetermined worksurface height, the mounting channels defining a worksurface high wireway;
• a plurality of first cover panels, at least some of which are full width and have a horizontally elongated front elevational shape, and are detachably attached to said mounting channels to thereby cover the fixed walls;
• a portable partition system for spatially dividing the open plan interior of the associated building room into a plurality of work settings, including:
• a plurality of freestanding panels detachably interconnected side-by-side in a predetermined plan configuration and having:
• internal frames, at least some of which define a horizontally extending utility raceway positioned adjacent the predetermined worksurface height;
• and
• a plurality of second cover panels, each having a horizontally elongated front elevational shape, and being detachably attached to the opposite sides of said frames to enclose the same;
• at least some of said internal frames abutting said demountable architectural wall system so that wires and cabling can be routed from the demountable architectural wall system to the portable partition system;
• and wherein
• said first cover panels of said demountable architectural wall system and said second cover panels of said portable partition system, each having first and second belt-high cover panels that have a narrow but substantially equal width and are positioned at a common height to present a uniform horizontal appearance datum throughout the building room.