Break the Monotony: Dynamic Workplace Furniture Ideas
Are you struggling to think outside the box? With these unconventional office furniture innovations, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a roundup of some office furnishing ideas that sparked our inspiration.
Written by
Fritha Selwyn-Jones
Contents
We talk a lot about workplace furniture on this blog, and we raise the importance of sustainability, safety, and ergonomics a lot, too. These and other factors are crucial elements of workplace design that form the foundations of a truly effective space, and they’re always at the centre of our design approach.
But another vital aspect of our approach is innovation, creativity, and thinking laterally. Without looking at our work through this lens, we wouldn’t be able to uncover the nuanced opportunities we do and create the solutions that keep our workplace consultancy clients loyal to us.
In this article, we’ll present some innovative ideas for workplace furnishing you don't see every day.
Multipurpose Furniture
1. Office Stations with Integrated Fitness
Combining fitness and movement with a workstation that allows you to stay focused and productive sounds too efficient to be true. A desk with an in-built exercise function allows you to do just that. Treadmills and stationary bikes fixed to desks allow users to stay active while working, burning calories or simply getting the blood pumping to boost brain power and increase productivity.
2. Moveable Meeting Pods
In compact workspaces, changing the layout or set-up at a moment’s notice is commonplace. We’re highly adept at helping our clients make the most of their space and creating modular, flexible workplaces that can adapt to any activity. Moveable meeting pods like the Q Meeting Pod Flip n' Fold are portable, making it easy to have an impromptu pop-up meeting virtually anywhere in your workplace while saving crucial space and preventing restricting stationary meeting pods.
3. Stackable Office Modules
Again, in small spaces, having flexibility is paramount. When the area is restricted, we recommend transforming the space with furniture modules that are built to be moved, repositioned, and stored in a way that works with the space. Seating doubles as storage, workstations can be combined or separated, and all units work together to make the furnishing look cohesive and aesthetic.
Interactive Workstations
1. Gesture-Controlled Interactive Desks
Workplaces are dynamic and constantly changing with new cutting-edge technology. Advanced, touch-controlled desks offer gesture recognition, meaning the user can manage their devices or presentations directly from controls built into the desk. The SmartDesk 4 is a good example of this, including touchscreens and AI, giving the user a highly interactive experience in an electronically height-adjustable unit.
2. Health Monitoring AI Desks
With workplace wellbeing and personalisation at the forefront of our value proposition, we’re always looking for ways to improve health and happiness at work. We really admire the Stir Kinetic Desk which learns and remembers user preferences and and habits and then uses an app to easily readjust to the user's preferences. It also shares information about how much time the user stands and sits while working at the desk.
3. Interactive Whiteboard Desks
Some of us remember the excitement of the interactive whiteboards in school. In the modern boardroom, interactive whiteboards bring (almost) as much happiness by making writing, drawing, planning, and collaborating easy. Digitally capturing notes and sharing them with all attendees makes each meeting more efficient, too.
Spaces That Adapt and Change
1. Smart Glass Partitions
There are benefits in having both open-plan office space and divided, private areas. What if we could have both without having to magically expand your entire office? Adjustable glass partitions are an innovation in dynamic and creative workplace design, affording even small and restricted offices creative breakout spaces.
Smart glass works by adjusting it’s opacity or being remotely adjusted to create as little or as much privacy as you need.
2. Retractable Ceiling-Mounted Furniture
We work with moveable, foldable, and storable furniture a lot to revolutionise space-saving. The Ori Pocket Closet is a great example of stylish, space-saving furniture. It is a collapsible walk-in closet that operates on runners like stacks in a library. This unit provides more storage in less space, leaving more room for activities. It also features a fold-down desk for extra use.
3. Climate-Adaptive Environments
Weather conditions outside are ever-changing, and they always affect the indoor environment. Futuristic concept design points towards a work environment that adjusts sensitively and reactively to what’s happening outside.
In a design that marries comfort with creativity, EDGE Olympic is a building based in Amsterdam which regulates indoor conditions based on outdoor conditions, adjusting light and temperature as needed to retain an optimally comfortable interior atmosphere.
EDGE Olympic is also a highly sustainable project, “maximising benefits for users while minimising its environmental impact”. The building combines sustainable practices like resource reuse, circular products, and VOC-free materials, making it an inspiration for workplaces of the future.
Have we inspired you with some innovative and exciting workplace ideas? Arrange to speak to one of our consultants about how we could apply these ideas to your office.
Published on
February 28, 2024
