From Fast Company:
Last week at Orgatec, a leading European trade show for contract and office furniture, the Swiss company Vitra previewed a set of office seating prototypes, called Soft Work, which you might more likely find in a chic hotel lobby or airport lounge. That’s exactly what the designers, London studio Barber Osgerby, intended.
Much has been said about the downfall of cubicles and the rise of open-plan offices over the years, with the pendulum of public favor alternating between the two. With Soft Work, the designers argue that the next trend in 21st-century working life will be to do away with the shackles of the desk-and-chair setup altogether. In their vision, offices of the future may consist of sofas–and little more.
. . . .
[V]isits to the Apple campus . . . helped the studio realize what the modern-day office was truly in need of: even more casual seating, away from the desk. “We realized that they were going to be putting a large amount of soft seating into [Apple Park], which were effectively residential sofas, very high-end Italian sofas,” says partner Edward Barber. “They were fantastic sofas, there’s no doubt about that, but they weren’t buying them to relax on–they were using them to work on, as an alternative area for working.”
This poses various problems: “You have to prop up or pull up a table,” he says. “You don’t necessarily have access to a power outlet. And you’re not sitting in the most ergonomic environment. It’s fine for a couple of minutes, but if you’re sitting there for a couple of hours, you’re sort of slouched, balancing a laptop on your knee. So that got us all thinking: If they could have the ideal setup, what would it look like?”
. . . .
An extension of the same thinking that gave the Pacific chair a more welcoming look and feel, Soft Work puts the same premium on a casual aesthetic to suggest a lifestyle in which work and relaxation aren’t at polar odds, but present in nearly every public space we frequent: cafes, airport lounges, hotel lobbies, and corporate and co-working spaces of all kinds. The name of the new collection, too, doesn’t just imply softer seating, but an aesthetic softness that Barber Osgerby and Vitra are betting will overtake the next wave of office design–and maybe a subliminal cue to all of those tech and (ahem) software companies with large campuses that are likely to adopt it.
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Designed modularly, the Soft Work collection has mix-and-match components that can be used for a variety of setups. Units can be used solo, as lounge chairs, or linked up into larger configurations; combined with rounded corner units, they can form inward or outward-facing circular arrangements to carve out a meeting hub, or spread out all over as a communal work lounge. Built around a spare, steel framework and topped with structured cushions that can be customized with most any color, the sofa system is designed to look stylishly neutral and easily placed.
Would it be realistic for a solid day’s work in a real-life office?
Barber says yes, and assures it’s been designed with a rigorous eye to ergonomics. Rather than take on an overly low-slung profile, Soft Work’s seats are chair height to promote proper posture, with a flexible backrest and cushions for lumbar support. The simple cast-aluminum supporting structure also doubles as utility routing, with plug-in ports that eliminate the need for external outlets and a tangle of wires. Add-on accessories to further customize the sofa-workstation include swiveling clip-on tables, space partitions, and modular surfaces. It’s everything needed for the modern-day, couch potato-turned-professional.
“Technology has rapidly changed the way we work over the last 10 years,” says Barber, and with the ability to take our devices anywhere and work remotely, the length of time spent working in any one location seems less important than the ability to do it comfortably anywhere–which is the pain point Barber Osgerby’s design aims to ease with Soft Work.
Link to the rest at Fast Company
Here’s a look at Vitra’s Soft Work office furniture:
.For PG, this type of workspace would be all wrong. He likes a desk at a proper height for typing, a big ergonomic keyboard and three screens (also at a proper height) so he can drop various and sundry electronic items, reminders, etc., on the side screens while he uses the center one for whatever he’s working on at the moment. While he’s typing, he typically rests one elbow on his desk and the other on the arm of his chair (asymetrical, but it works for him).
For him, a teensy platform for a laptop as his main typing/email, etc., station would slow work down to a crawl. He uses a laptop when he travels, but at home, it’s back to mission control and improved throughput.
Mrs. PG does her work in an entirely different way, however. She formerly sat in a chair at a desk to type, but a chronically sore back and hips ended that. She now writes while semi-reclining on a sofa or bed and uses a lap desk as a platform for her laptop. She is happy with this arrangement and is cranking out new books at a brisk pace, so PG restrains himself from suggesting improvements (after many years of pushing back, Mrs. PG has finally completed PG’s training, mostly).
So, here’s the question – In your opinion, what writing arrangement works best for an author generally or for you as an author?
My professional training is as a furniture maker. I remember the introductory unit on ergonomics and laughing my ass off. At the time I was the average height for a woman in my country. Yet I was able to easily demonstrate for my classmates that all the furniture around me was too big. My feet didn’t touch the floor in the chairs, my shoulders were up around my ears to allow arm movement at the desks. And we didn’t have tilting drafting tables, so I ended up in a sort of standing half crouch when and drafting, and just in pain when using CAD for any extended amount of time.
All that ‘proper height’ furniture that you guys seem so keen on was clearly designed for the average height man. Often times even adjustable furniture doesn’t have the range of adjustments to suit my size.
There are tells to this. Women tend to slip off their shoes and sit crosslegged on the chair. Men will perch on the very front. Standard height furniture is often uncomfortable for most people.
Of course I do have the ability to build custom size desks and chairs for myself. But all the years in classrooms and offices sitting in discomfort has given me a revulsion for it. I jump between an armchair and a standing desk that I keep tweaking to perfection.
A proper height desk and chair? Ugh don’t sign me up for that.
When we were in hardwall offices we gave folks a combo of a desk and a computer table plus at least one file cabinet. A lot of people, not just the height-challenged, preferred to use the computer tables (most were height adjustable) as desks and use the desks strictly for storage and archaeological filing.
Some convinced the furniture gods to let them trade desks for computer tables with drawers. We spent a “lot* of time running simulations or writing onscreen. It helped that our department managers believed in ergonomics and investing in tools. We got lots of cool toys to help out.
For a while we were stuck with cubicles but we demonstrated we needed a lot of storage space so we talked our way to the tallest partitions with two layers of overhead (flipper box) storage and computer-height work surfaces. Plus, we got to design the floor layout for our floor so we provided a lunch room with fridge and microwave, a nice conference room, and a separate meeting room for impromptu use by the staff.
The building folk were shocked at our power drop requirements and actually cut them in half. Then we moved in, set up our workstations and servers, and tripped all the breakers. They then had to pay for a rush installation of added circuits and drops. Never doubted us again.
Twas a good time.
Oh, yeah: they didn’t believe our heat load numbers either until the breaker incident. Then they had to rush install a second A/C unit for the server room.
They just weren’t used to dealing with R&D engineering workloads, just clerical. We had *lots* of cool toys. High end workstations, multiple servers, and a supercomputer-class cluster. Even the AA’s got great gear: large displays, ergo keyboards, dye-diffusion printer, high speed sheet-fed scanner. The managers themselves got normal PCs but also ultralight presentation kits for when on travel. Smallest laptop and projectors available. All the latest and greatest software, too.
The Boss was a Rainmaker, and imperialist, and a firm believer in productivity tools.
We hated it when he retired.
I’ve got an old, large, flat walnut sheriff’s desk (no cubbyholes, but a 6″ rail around the front & halfway down the sides).
The whole setup would be better organized, but I have my rolling fileboxes and much of the stuff on my desk barricaded off to keep the 90-lb puppy from eating them, and my cat takes all the space behind my laptop (when she’s not lying on it directly), and the dog beds under the desk obstruct my rolling desk chair, and so forth.
It doesn’t work like that when I design things in my head, without other participants.
We should soon see an article telling us how the new office design comes from the vibrant new generation of workers who are so free from the strictures of the past that they won’t put up with traditional offices. They will change the workplace forever.
I first saw the article about 1970, and it is a staple of slow news days. Each group of 20-year-olds falls for the stuff about how vibrant and new they are until they see the same stuff being recycled when they are forty. Then they look around and see nothing has really changed. Look for stock photos of bicycle racks, espresso machines, and energy drink coolers accompanying the article. Those indicate real freedom from the old ways.
It’s the Great Hoax that has been cycling for thousands of years. The oldest know example was found on the Rosetta Stone.
I agree with a lot of the comments that this set-up wouldn’t work. I’ve tried working in libraries and cafes, including Starbucks, but the setups were uncomfortable, and in a couple of cases, very cold! (even in the summer–Starbucks had AC ducts blowing on each table.) Also, there’s nothing in any of those places for my feet. I have a footrest below my desk and really wish I had something more substantial than a metal rail on the front of my desk to rest my feet on at times when I’m looking for something higher than my footrest on the floor.
I divide my time between a standing desk and a conventional desk, both with a single 24″ display. I used to have multiple displays, but I got rid of them because I found them distracting.
I also have a Stressless recliner with a large lap desk shaped like a lopsided kidney that I made myself to fit the way I like to use my Surface with a stylus. I can’t really say which I prefer. The standing desk is my latest addition and I have noticed an increase in my energy level since I started standing more.
Being able to switch at will with the aid of Dropbox keeping my wasteful collection of redundant machines in sync is a genuine luxury.
The last office I worked in had couches sprinkled around, but they were beastly uncomfortable and no one used them. I worked in cubicles for a few years and didn’t mind it. My single demand for office space was ample conference rooms with whiteboards and good connectivity. I always noticed that productivity soared when the conference rooms were filled with developers drawing block diagrams and yelling at each other.
I once had a fit when Facilities and HR colluded to take the numbers off the conference rooms and named them for wine varieties. You seriously expect me to remember #1 is Chardonnay?
I live alone and when I moved, chose the largest bedroom as my office. Found I was doing most of my writing at the dining table. Solution – replace office desk with a dining table style desk, see under and around, smaller than the old one which was cluttered and hard to reach anything that fell off. Mobile filing drawers, ergonomic chair with pump to adjust lumbar support, arms can be up or down. I’m good. If I work in a recliner, I still need a folding table to act as a desk. At least I have nobody to sue but myself.
When I got moved from a hardwall office to a cubicle (new building, new work spaces) I was not a happy camper. As an INTJ, I value (and NEED) alone time. Cubicles at that time were the new “in thing” in office layouts.
The fact that the cubicles cost more than simple drywall hardwall offices was irrelevant to the company planners.
But, when working in Japan on a project, I saw how their offices were set up. A cubicle would have been heavenly in comparison. Imagine a large, open office space, scattered about were a lot of “clumps” of desks, all arranged in rectangles. All the desks faced each other and were touching. The desk at one end was where the manager of this “team” sat. Absolutely no privacy at all, and everyone looking across at other workers, whose desks touched yours. UGH!
Such an arrangement would never work out here in the US or Europe. Different standards of privacy, personal space, and interactions compared to Japan.
I didn’t feel so bad about being in a cubicle after that.
As with the others, no way.
Good desk, eye level monitors two each – and that is off my ‘writing laptop’, it’s out of the way with a wireless keyboard/mouse wherever I want them.
I have done the recliner thing, wireless keyboard/trackball talking to a netbook plugged into the room’s TV so the screen wasn’t ‘in my face’.
May Your Mileage Vary.
No desks and no chairs? It’s a cocktail party sans booze.
My set-up is similar to that of Mrs. PG’s: semi-reclining with my laptop resting atop flat, fabric-covered “desk” of foam, mouse pad down on the mattress at exactly the right angle for my hand on the mouse.
I actually write my fiction in an “Adobe Hovel” — a shed with 3-feet thick dirt walls — about 200 feet from my house. My desk out there is a small, former dressing table that I’ve made the right height. I have a great chair with good lumbar support and I write on a very old HP laptop. Internet can’t reach through the walls, so zero distractions. I typically turn out 2,000 – 5,000 words per day, and I’m currently working on my 35th novel. So it works for me. (grin)
For a moment I thought you said you worked in a 3-foot-wide hovel and felt such incredible sympathy. Then I tried to do the math and I realized I was mistaken. 🙂
Two monitors, and having heard that PG uses 3, I want #3. Big fat ergonomic keyboard. Perfectly adjustable keyboard tray. Standing desk. Aeron chair. In my favorite color, please. Nice view out the window. That’s an office, baby. It’s designed to get the work done.
Our company implemented open offices, sofas, and “hotel” desks. Now the office is a deserted wilderness and many people work from home.
FWIW:
I think that if you’re not working at a desk with a large portrait monitor (say a 24 incher) at, literally arms lenth, the only acceptable solution is a thin and light laptop and a recliner.
Anything else is risking spinal injury.
As for this “brainstorm” some furniture exec almost certainly saw a bunch of business travellers stuck at an airport and decided this would be an alternate market for slow selling waiting room couches.
Yep. I’m a recliner/laptop kind of girl — after too many years at a desk, doing damage to my neck (two surgeries later, I’m fine).
Apart from all the other, entirely valid, objections, this is a view of just one sort of office work. In this view, the work consists of typing on a laptop. There is no other implement involved. There are some sorts of work where this is true. It is not true of my work, which involves stacks of carefully ordered paper. All that paper could in principle be scanned and shredded, with my work entirely paperless, but this would be comically inefficient, especially if I had only that small laptop. I would spend my day jumping between the window with that scanned document and the window I was working in.
How long before the first complaints of workplace injuries because of carpal tunnel arise? I could not work in that setting. 1) I need a quiet space and desk 2) at the proper height for my keyboard and 3) elevated screen so I can sit back straight, head up. Even with my heavy wrist braces on, I cannot work for long with the computer on my lap.
There was an episode, Twilight Zone or Night Gallery, where a hippy guy dies in a car wreck and ends up in a suburban house where a couple is watching an endless stack of vacation slides. To him, he is in Hell. To the couple, they are in Heaven.
The pictures of the planned “new office” are a classic example of that episode. Half the people using it will be in Heaven, the other in Hell.
Now consider, they show the “office” with one person sitting there, where in reality, such an “office” would be packed with people trying to “work”. See them sitting there, no privacy, no place to set a latte, or brownie. The minute you stand up to use the bathroom, you have to take all of your possessions with you, and thus lose your seat.
I could go on, showing each scenario in loving sadistic detail — the big sloppy guy with the not so faint whiff of BO, sitting across from the pretty young girl — but I’ve already triggered too many people, including myself. Simply put:
– I can think of no greater horror than being stuck in an “office” like that. HA!
Such an “office” is what ultimately leads to this:
Fight Club (1999) Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRKdVHc-cE
I’ll add this to my story folder for when I do the Salaryman stories. Thanks…
I use a large desk because I’m a bit of a clutterbug. I bought two glass desks from an office supply store and put them in an L shape in my office. I use two widescreen monitors and am waiting for a chance to buy a newer, bigger curved monitor. And yes, I’d love to have three. You can never have too many if you’re researching or writing and need to look something up.
The office pictured above would not work for me at all. I work in web. I need dual monitors and lots of screen space.
It’s a great way to get rid of people. If they have no space they call their own, they’ll always feel like they’re one mistake away from getting tossed.
I have to have a desk, if only people I have a lot of papers to work through. If it’s on the computer only, it’s easy to forget and a pain to keep track of.
Of course, that’s what i do now, but only some files are on my computer, and others are printed out when I need them. Forcing me to work solely from my computer would result in less work being done.
Our large tech company has an open floor plan (yay for over-the-ear headphones) with a fair number of couches scattered around.
Nobody uses the couches.
Add some desks, desk chairs, and tables to the mix, and see where people go. Put some stand alone big screen monitors around and watch what people do with them, and how they deploy them. Make a wall of lockers for shoes, lunches, purses…
The pics look like an airport.
You can’t let people decide – they don’t know what they like/need! Just like books, you have to tell them which are properly cultured for them.
As to that open-open floor plan, I’m not sure how you’re supposed to get any work/thinking/writing done unless you’re the only one in the room.