Evolving Office Furniture

Workplace Evolving Office Furniture

Highlights from Milan’s Furniture Fair 2012

For all its overflowing aperitifs, sartorial spunk and immaculatelyclothed crowds, Fashion Week’s starved glamour simply cannot compete with the event embodiment of Milan’s heart: the Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

By KATHERINE OLSON

Office offerings at this year’s Salone are of particular interest. Companies worldwide are shrinking their headquarters (Nokia Siemens’ newest hub, for example, holds just 700 seats for 1,000 employees), revamping their offices, and changing the way the world views office space. International firms, from historic innovators like Herman Miller to modern favorites, are designing accordingly.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND TECH, MEET DESIGN

Rapid technological growth and an equally-breakneck pace of changing workplace demographics means that designers have singular opportunities and challenges when creating furniture and interior design for the office. Mark Catchlove, director of the Insight Group for the Herman Miller design firm, analyzes workplace design trends on a daily basis. He stresses the pitfalls of designers’ incorporating technology, rather than simply fortifying it: “Now, technology supports the way we want to work, whereas in the past it very much drove the way we had to work and how we designed for the office. If you look at a photo from 10 years ago, desks were huge, if for no other reason than to accommodate the PC, the calculator, the printer. That’s what drove it.” Given the prevalence of iPads, the ease of WiFi access, and round-theclock deadlines, office space is morphing from its traditional blueprint of four corner offices padded by underlings’ cubes, into something flexible, even inspiring. Breakout, or collaborative spaces, are increasingly popular, says Catchlove, as is the concept of “Bring Your Own Technology.” “People got their mobile phone, their laptop, their tablet device. They can now ask themselves, where can they go to do their job today?” Fifty-percent of the space Herman Miller now designs for is transitioning to accommodate nontraditional, collaboration-centric desks, such as the RESOLVE desk system (see photo), which is based on a 120-degree angle and has corners where employees can arrange – and rearrange – furniture, such as a small table or sofa, depending on their meetings and needs. “Very few great ideas happen at a desk anymore. It’s always unplanned. The desk might simply be where you crystallize that creativity, make it happen, formalize it,” explains Catchlove.

ACCOMMODATING MOVEMENT IS KEY This ability to move freely is integral to the work experience. Joakim Lassen of Montana Design has seen the implications of movement on our modern, deadline-driven office: “The needs are changing fast. Today you need a flexible working environment; height-adjustable working desks and minimum of storage space on wheels, allowing for ready use by different employees. Modern companies are dynamic and require that their employees move around for the next working team and project assignment.” Montana Design debuted its new color range for its popular storage system as well as Verner Panton’s TIVOLI CHAIR. Catchlove cites the Herman Miller SETU, a chair designed for brief meetings and sessions for employees who are “touching down for an hour or two,” as another example. Featuring automatic adjustments, without unnecessary bells and whistles, Catch-

01 The Montana Design Tivoli chair is produced with a frame of stainless, polished steel. The chair features a seat is woven with strings of polyurethane, reinforced with a nylon core. The Tivoli chair is hand-woven and each chair uses 85 meters of string. It takes a professional weaver approx. 1½ hours to make one chair.

02 For this think tank designed by KARE, the client requested a "natural" environment with flexible and solid wood furniture, round shapes and a harmonious atmosphere. The furniture is from KARE Collection "Authentico," and features solid sheesham wood from sustainable forestry. 03 KARE Office Collection’s clear brilliant white surfaces and the reduced shapes create openness, concentration and lucidity. The materials include lacquered hollow core board, and chrome-plated metal parts.

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love says it supports the new philosophy of “smaller workstations, simpler products.”

SPOTLIGHT ON THE WORKER

Not all workers are able to split their time between the traditional office and the great outdoors. KARE Design founder and CEO Jürgen Reiter designs for those workers who spend the larger part of their days inside traditional, but changing, offices. “We service specific target-groups of industries and interior designers and decorators which have recognized, that ‘work time’ is lifetime. We all spend the majority of our lifetime at our offices. Life quality and, last but not least, lifestyle does not end at the door of our private homes. The result: companies offer life quality and lifestyle at the workstations with design-oriented workspaces and an individualized environment.” KARE, which exhibited at the Salone, is known for its colorful, modern aesthetic.

INDIVIDUALITY AND THE INTERGENERATIONAL OFFICE

Client development manager of design firm BOF Jane Wheeler says, “There is a need to accommodate different age groups with different needs and expectations. Aged 25 and under, there is tendency to think ‘email is for old people.’ This age group, who have grown up using Facebook, YouTube, blogs and Twitter expect to use the same tools at work.” Fifty-somethings, who weren’t reared on social media but now find themselves reliant on it, have an equally powerful impact the way designers incorporate technology into their office space. “There is a growing contingent of 50+ year-olds, making up 1 in 3 of the workforce. With the erosion of pension provision, most are not prepared for retirement and will need to carry on working,” explains Wheeler. “The challenge for workplace design will be to create environments enabling these different age groups to learn from each other and work together in positive and productive ways.” One way designers are working to encourage brainstorming and interaction between these two age groups is by developing multifunctional furniture that facilitates – and, in some cases, provokes – conversation. The Herman Miller design, SWOOP, is a series of chairs and sofas that you can link together and move around. “We’re seeing workplaces being designed to encourage certain behavior,” says Catchlove. “More collaboration, more sharing of ideas, more interaction, more opportunity for serendipitous encounters.”

A SPACE THAT FEELS LIKE HOME

Other firms, such as Germany-based COR, are developing modular furniture, to be used in homes and offices alike. (Soon, one might be indistinguishable from the other). Wheeler concurs: “Loose furniture such as soft seating and breakout elements are no longer confined to reception areas and instead feature strongly throughout the building... People are just as likely to stage a presentation seated on sofas as they are from a boardroom.” The designers at 21stLIVINGART understand this intrinsically. The firm debuted JOHN, what Valentina Brustio, 21stLIVINGART’s marketing manager, calls “a chair with a young soul,” and META, a multi-purpose, indoor-outdoor bookshelf, two pieces created by designer Mario Mazzer, at this year’s Salone. Explains Brustio, “Today, an efficient worker cannot simply be active, or only reactive: proactivity is the key feature for a good start. This means that we can never ‘switch off,’ we must stay connected with the world around us even when we are physically out of the

office.” JOHN features a small shelf on the seat back, appropriate for storing objects or working on a small laptop or tablet. It’s one example of what Brustio calls a “smart” object. “Smart objects,” she explains, “are objects with identity, which have the ability to interact somehow with the surrounding environment and with the user.” The META, on the other hand, is as reflective as it is practical. “Its shape movement reflects our frenzy, the holes are an expression of our open minded thinking, the colors inspire freshness and vitality,” says Brustio. Neither is typical of the traditional office, and perhaps that is the point: to blur the line

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between work and play, and to inspire the worker.

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS, GRAND EVOLUTION

If we’ve learned anything from Apple’s technology or IKEA’s philosophy, it is that the effortless design often has the most resounding impact. The seemingly simple objects that premiered as part of this year’s Salone – a chair that functions as a desk, a desk that converts into a meeting center – pose a complex question: Is business transforming design, or, perhaps, is design revolution izing business? • -

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04 Trusses carry power and data independent of the Herman Miller

Resolve workspace below so

workstations can be light, open, and easy to plan and reconfigure. 05 Ample but well-concealed storage space allows organization to flourish easily. 06 Display screens in Bubbletack fabric allow for accessible vertical storage of work materials and display of personal items throughout the Resolve system. 07 The Herman Miller SETU chair’s kinematic spine bends and flexes to support every move. Setu's finely tuned elastomeric fabric provides superior suspension and conforms to your contours. 08 The Herman Miller Resolve system is a human-centered system. Its smart structure creates open, inviting, space-efficient workstations where people feel comfortable and connected.