The office of the future? No desks, no chairs

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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.

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[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?”

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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:

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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?