Office furniture, how it changes now that we work everywhere

P.rhyme was the perch stool, then the ball-chair arrived, now it could be not a seat but a table to save our backs, the “standing desk” adjustable in height to work on the computer while standing. In some offices there are already, with Apps that remind you to lift the desk when it has been in the same position for too long, but it is in a pandemic, when the office crashed into the housewhich newspapers and magazines, at least Anglo-Saxon, have begun to speak of as the new “must-have”, the essential accessory for the home office. Here, says a quick poll among friends, the most sought-after piece was the ergonomic chair. Now that many have bought it, the end of the state of emergency is looming. Will smart working restored with Omicron also fade? Or will the office become a memory?

Designing the agile workstation

«The most probable scenario, insiders have been saying this for years, is hybrid work, with activities in the presence and others remotely» says Federica Blasi, designer and art director. «The task of a designer is to create the tools to work well in both situations, to understand what people want and what they need. It’s not just where you work, you have to think about how: technology has reduced lead times, to do one thing we take less, so we do more, we have to adapt to this speed ». Among the configurations provided by its system Kokoro for Manerba there is a location for “speedy meetings”. “You see yourself, have a coffee and take stock of the situation. By now it is difficult to cross the agendas for river meetings, the time to meet has also shortened ».

Places and non-workplaces

In the movie The place by Ermanno Olmi, from 1961, the desks are arranged in a row as in school and the office manager is in the chair. Three generations later that layout seems prehistoric to us. Olivetti’s sixties are also very far away with the technological desks in sheet metal by Studio Bbpr, which have become collectors’ items. Today, designers design muffled “room in room” to isolate themselves in the open space, who is no longer just in the office: «Now we work everywhere. A computer and an outlet are enough, there are those who only use the telephone »points out Marialaura Rossiello of Studio Irvine. His alcove sofa for Thonet looks in this direction: «It was born for non-places where you can improvise a station: airports, shopping centers, waiting rooms, but also coworking and bars. In light of what happened, I also see it at home. A nest where you can disconnect from the rest, appropriate for video calls. We continue to hold meetings on Meets when we could meet and I have seen unlikely backgrounds for a professional environment ».

From office to home and vice versa

If office furniture knocks on your front door, the opposite also happens. The Petit Bureau in free forms that Charlotte Perriand designed for her atelier has been adapted by Cassina for professional use. In the “Pro” version, reinforced and wired, it gives an image, certainly very luxurious, of the “home office” that experts have been advocating for some time: better a welcoming and cozy workplace (open space has shown its limits) of a Googleplex in Mountain View. The Campus model of the Google headquarters no longer convinces even Clive Wilkinson, the architect who conceived it: certain distractions do not help creative work, if you put sleeping pods everywhere, he’s given up, people want to sleep.

The post-home office

In lockdown, in Milan, the PostHomean ideal house of fifty square meters with a study room available for away researchers. Maybe we don’t think about it anymore about the inlet filter to sanitize clothes, but the study corner has remained an object of desire. To furnish it today there is everything, furniture and chairs on wheels, retractable desks, design desks, the companies have put back into the catalog pieces that have become topical again and have studied new ones, also space-saving. But what if there is no space? In the book Very Milanese houses (Ed.Corraini), Fabrizio Esposito, aka Alvar Aaltissimo, makes fun of the follies of the real estate market by illustrating imaginary apartments for sale or rent. In the studio of the two recently challenged, four hundred and fifty euros each while it lasts, smart working can become a nightmare.

iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED

ttn-13