Office Furniture

The changing face of the private office

The hidden desires of many an office worker would probably revolve around:

“I need a sense of privacy that I can control and be able to concentrate, but I want to stay connected with my team.”

“I would love to have an office that reflects who I am, and space that feels like my own.”

Or more bluntly: “I’d love to have a beautiful office.”

Who wouldn’t, right?

If you’ve been into some progressive offices in lately, one thing stands out: space—plenty of it.

Office space affects behavior and productivity. Organizational behavior is important in any company, whether a small home office or a multinational conglomerate. It weighs on an employee’s decision whether to stay or leave the company. Worker privacy is a given, but it must be also be balanced with a surrounding that fosters creativity, interaction, collaboration and high performance teamwork.

Rethinking company workspace
Whatever the company size or philosophy, productivity increases in an environment conducive to living, working, learning, and socializing. Just as the term “worker” has evolved into “knowledge worker,” office furniture and design now encompass terms such as “fluid or mobile workspace,” “collaborative work areas,” “office systems” and “systems furniture.”

Even the traditional image of a private office that is cloistered and isolated from the rest of the workplace is changing. Wireless technology has provided a quantum leap in the new office workflow. It has torn down the physical barriers and actually redefined “where” and “what” constitutes an office. Never have workers been more empowered and mobile than now. The come to work with their laptops, log in, work, log out and leave, and log in from somewhere else.

This quiet revolution may be attributed to a new breed of workforce comfortable with multi-tasking and working in a wireless environment. Generation Y (a.k.a. Echo Boomers, Generation Next), strictly speaking, have no urgent need for constricting cubicles as long as surroundings are homey, fun, and relaxing.

They are also not so concerned about office hierarchy and positions as they are about mobility and connectivity. Properly managed wide spaces emit vibrant synergism that creates a sense of autonomy and nurture creativity.

Designers, furniture manufacturers and workers alike have embraced this emergent mobile order. For businesses, realizing that workers can be as productive inside the office as well as outside reduces their need for real estate. That means lower costs.

The challenge now is how office furniture layout can promote effective collaboration and communication in the workplace.

Collaborative private space
The Chicago-based Business Ledger noted recently that, “The trend is that businesses are going away from providing private offices (real estate), and replacing them with collaborative work spaces. Known in the industry as “Touchdown Stations” or “Hoteling Stations,” these communal work spaces lower real estate costs while providing offices with high-energy, high-creativity spaces for collaboration. Office furniture is now designed to facilitate office-wide communication. Separation panels are shorter to allow workers to see and interact with each other. Workspaces no longer are isolated 3-wall oases.”

Herman Miller, Knoll, Maxon Furniture, and Steelcase are industry leaders that create and provide ideal workplace furnishings. They also adhere to the “systems furniture” paradigm and conform to environmentally sustainable construction standards such as the Green Building Rating System.

Knoll’s award-winning AutoStrada series is the most comprehensive office system every designed by the company. Its four models are light and open, conveying a sense of orderly free space and calibrated private nooks: spine-based, storage-anchored, wall-based, and collaborative.

Spine-based frames create tightly organized desks and storage. Cover options include veneer, slatwall, marketboard, tackable fabric, cable tray and shelf covers. Tapered-edge surfaces connect along the spines and can link with screens and either clear or powder glass panels.

Anchor cabinets, tapered-edge work surfaces and laminated panels characterize storage-based systems furniture. They are variations of casegoods furniture. Bridges that connect median storage and anchor cabinets make a neat, monolithic exterior while providing comfortable shared workspace.

Wall-based furniture combines freestanding desks, chairs, and overhead storage to create private office space without sacrificing walled collaborative areas. Applied wall frames support display shelves, overhead storage, coat hooks and picture hooks.

The AS-4 office systems furniture captures the collaborative essence of table-and-desk based work area. Its innovative open table design fosters group creativity and interaction. Its clean, symmetrical lines accentuate a big, uncluttered worktable. Crinion Open Tables are supported by cantilever and parallel beams between the legs. The beams also provide a corridor to house technology support and power distribution cables. The tables are meticulously constructed using FSC-certified composite wood together with anodized aluminum and plastic laminate.

Screens can be mounted between work surfaces or at the edges for seated-height privacy. Center, side and end screens come in tackable fabric, acrylic and slatwall. Crinion Open Tables supports flat-panel monitors and provide continuous wire drop into a cable basket for related technology.

The Doue system from Steelcase is a versatile freestanding desk system whose modular components are designed to accommodate the intense use of IT equipment from today’s knowledge worker. The simple structure, wide work surfaces and accommodations for cable management make workstation configuration quite easy.

The Doue system is flexible, space saving and cost efficient. Its use wood and organic finish offset the steel and plastic of desktops and laptops. Screens are height adjustable to define space and control visual and acoustic privacy. This is perfect for personal concentration while maintaining a sense of community and team spirit.

For Maxon, it is all about customization. Maxon uses panels and partitions to expand the confines of the standard cubicle into sophisticated workstations. Segmented parallel panels are glass or glass tile and can be accented with lamination or fabric. Maxon’s panels are easy to install and reconfigure. Interlocking 2” aluminum frames are lightweight, space saving and solid. Top caps, steel raceways and its solid hardboard internal core are rigid and durable. Its multiple segmented panels are both tackable and non-tackable with options for electrical raceways. Accessory rail, keyboard tray and solid steel file cabinets give further options.

A totally paperless office is still years away because the need for storage is still present. Matching overhead cabinets, shelves, freestanding lateral files, stationary pedestals and bookcases merge seamlessly into the workstation design to appear as unobtrusive as possible.

Steelcase adheres to a similar credo: a versatile panel system attuned to the diversities of the workplace. Their answer: forward workspace architecture embodied by the Forward Elements (FE) panel-based furniture system. FE believes a highly flexible workspace can still share a unified structure and design. FE caters to the individual worker whose need for controlled privacy is paramount and collaborators who thrive in a team environment. The primary elements to configure the spaces are the bridge, post and beam.

Large individual panel frames shape the layout of the workspace. The slim design and refined trim give it an assured and confident appeal. Slatwalls, ports and scallops for plug and play technology keep surface area free from unsightly cables and wires. Frosted desktop screens provide privacy from co-workers beside you.

Herman Miller has one of the most diverse and contemporary office systems available. The Douglas Ball-designed Vivo Interiors is an example. Its core design rests on the frame-and-tile system. The refined steel frames handle cable and power management while the clean, textured tiles augment functionality.

Lines are time and clean as all components align and interlock perfectly. Progressive furniture glides and sliding door storage blends with traditional veneer to produce a refined and practical design. Workstations’ low walls make shared office spaces inviting and accessible. Upmount screens and profile stacking windows reassure personal privacy while maintaining an open view.

Vivo Interiors were designed under strict cradle-to-cradle protocols. Stains are water based while powder coating eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Its frames are 100% recyclable and wood are sourced from sustainable forests.

“Functional beauty” best describes the Herman Miller My Studio Environments. The basis of the design is the idea that a person must be reoriented to a 6’ x 8’ workstation with desk, credenza and storage.

Designer Douglas Ball’s recalled its genesis: “I worked out in my mind a plan as to how you would reorient a person in that space. How would you have a principle work surface, a credenza behind, and something alongside that would give a person more storage and more counter space? The corners would be rounded. There’s a circle and the person would sit in the center of it. You would just swing the chair around and everything was right there, within reach.”

My Studio Environments wraps itself around the worker and makes that worker the focus. My Studio Environments is a wall-based system of inverted landscape where the walls get progressively lower from the outside, to the sidewalls, and finally to the spine.

The introduction of high aisle-side walls is contrary to the traditional paneled environment of high centers with overhead storage attached. “We’d like to have the center low so you can see across to the other side. You can see the worker across from you, but the height of that is critical. We wanted to be able to block eye vision from a seated position, but if you left your head, you can make eye contact. You can have collaboration and you don’t have you move,” Mr. Ball explained.

Thus, 68 to 81-inch high walls provide privacy without totally sacrificing openness. The 46-inch side street (or aisle-side) walls offer visual connectivity. Inside, curved outer corner and open inner corners and an About Face orientation allow workers more space to face any direction. Walls, frames and closet panels are available in monochromatic, neutral and warm tones.

Another trend incorporated into the design is zone planning. The application of zone logic keeps workers focused and minimizes peripheral distractions. The My Studio Environments has four zones each to create, display, organize files and materials, and to filter interruptions. These can now be the zones of conversation, concentration and contemplation. This zone-concept has really taken people-centric furniture to a new level.

As usual Herman Miller has applied the strictest environmental standards to this cutting edge office design. Aside from being 69% recyclable, My Studio Environments is the first furniture system to receive the McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) cradle to-cradle Silver certification. And along with Vivo Interiors, it is also GREENGUARD certified as a low-emitting product that conforms to current indoor-air-quality standards.

An ecological-friendly office system that pampers the workforce will undoubtedly have a positive contributing force on morale, productivity and health. Pamper is the operative word. Cappuccino and juice bars, recreational lounges with flat screen TVs and gaming consoles, and giant pillows are some of the add-ons to keep employees content and motivated. Fitness rooms, billiards tables and even a dart board can keep employee collaboration going way beyond their office hours.

Space management is the new furniture. Keep people happy where they work and the whole company will reap the benefits of its employees’ collective collaboration.