Patent ID: 6067762
Filing Date: 2000-05-30
Classification: A47B,E04B,E04F,E06B,F24F,H02G

Abstract:
A furniture system for subdividing a building space defined by existing building walls, such as drywall covered building walls, and for facilitating routing of utilities throughout the building space, comprising: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 configured to support 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; anda freestanding partition system including partition panels with preassembled 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 utilities can be flexibly routed along and within the partition frames under the second cover panels, the partition system including at least one partition panel with an end abutting the wall-covering system and the partition frames having open ends that are configured so that the utilities can be easily routed from the wall-covering system to the freestanding partition system through the abutting end of the freestanding partition system.