Jay Osgerby and Edward Barber Courtesy of Vitra
The gig economy is only expanding: Freelancers currently make up about a third of the American workforce and are projected to comprise half by 2027, a trend that’s mirrored in the growing contract workforce across the globe. With fewer people tied to desks, and more finding ways to work wherever we are—whether that’s in bed, at the beach or on a plane—designers are rethinking how we create, connect and get comfortable in our workspaces.
It’s a design challenge that invokes not just ergonomics and aesthetics, but also our deeper value systems around work-life balance, time management and boundaries. “Today, more is being asked of workers in all parts of their lives, and the personal and professional are overlapping more than ever before,” says John Hamilton, director of global design for Coalesse, Turnstone, and Steelcase’s color, materials and finish division. “The need to use our time wisely is impacting how and where work is happening; workplaces are more diverse and need to support a greater variety of work styles; and workers’ expectations are higher and harder for employers to keep up with.”
Designers like Hamilton, who works out of Steelcase’s Learning and Innovation Center in Munich, develop modern workspace products through research on employee pain points. For instance, Coalesse’s Lagunitas collection—a collaboration with acclaimed Milan-based furniture and technology designer Toan Nguyen—includes adjustable lounge seating, tables and fabric screens that can be moved and reconfigured based on immediate needs. “The collection was a response to observing how individuals and small groups were using casual spaces that were not designed to support working at a table in a lounge-like posture,” explains Hamilton, which led to the creation of “an articulating back cushion that can be rapidly adjusted to support the user in both upright and relaxed postures.”
Observing behavioral patterns in communal work zones like coffee shops, co-working cafes or hotel lobbies can provide designers with valuable insights on how the spaces they’ve created are actually put to use. It was the latter that inspired Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, co-founders of London-based design firm Barber & Osgerby, while they were designing a co-working table for the Ace Hotel London Shoreditch. “We found people were populating sofas in the communal lobby area, working on their laptops and killing their backs,” says Barber. “There wasn’t an ergonomic product that addressed that need, even amidst the proliferation of freelance careers and ‘hot desking’ [in which employees move from desk to desk instead of ‘owning’ one].”
The realization sparked Barber & Osgerby’s Soft Work collection, a collaboration with Swiss furniture company Vitra, which combines ergonomic seating (that can be assembled to look like a couch, loveseat or individual chairs) with adjustable work surfaces, outlets and privacy panels. Available in dozens of fabric colorways, two base colors and five tabletop colors, the product was born of the design duo’s belief that the traditional conception of the office desk is, in essence, dead—or, at the very least, dying. “The workstation is disappearing as an archetype,” says Osgerby. “With mobile technology, you need a place to sit occasionally, or a comfortable place to hang out. Flexibility is key.” Soft Work, with its modular format, features pivoting tables and power sockets, generously padded seat cushions with flexible back rests, and partition screens to divide zones.
Other designers contend that the desk still holds value—but must be reinvented to accommodate modern needs. “I am even more convinced of the desk’s importance and future,” says Hamilton. “What might be dead is the uninspired desk that doesn’t account for the needs of a modern workplace. Desks that move as individuals and teams need, support current tools and technologies and enable all types of work styles will be the foundation of future spaces where we choose to work.”
Lauren Rottet, the award-winning principal and president of interior architecture firm Rottet Studio, is of a similar mind—and has devised her own stylish work seating system, the Lyda sofa. With a seat that is slightly higher and firmer than a regular sofa (17 inches off the ground versus some that can be as low as 15 inches), Lyda is designed to be extra-supportive and easy to get in and out of. “We used to need large desks due to the physical stacks of paper and large typewriters,” says Rottet. “Now, most of the time, we simply need a small laptop, tablet or phone, and space to stretch out as we are not moving from our seats.” Still, after designing more than 40 million square feet of office space in her career, Rottet knows that it takes much more than the perfect seating arrangement to make a workspace truly work: “It is not just the physical ergonomics that improve performance and satisfaction—it requires a psychological orchestration of ambient lighting, air movement, amenities and a design environment with ‘cool factor,’ that’s not static, but changes with the day and time of year.”
Those intangible elements were at play when Copenhagen-based research and design lab Space10 hired local design and architecture studio Spacon & X to overhaul its 12,000-square-foot office in February to enhance mental health, community, inclusivity, flexibility and creativity. To get it right, the studio’s designers consulted with Space10’s in-house psychologist to find solutions that facilitated employee well-being through customization and flexible, user-focused design. Driven by research finding that healthy posture promotes better performance, Spacon & X brought in desks that can be swiveled up and down to an individual’s preferred height. Other design changes, like movable panels that serve as makeshift walls to divide up the office, semiprivate cubicles, and soundproof call booths, allow employees to adapt the space to their needs, whether that’s brainstorming with a group or churning out a solo report in silence.
Embracing different kinds of employees rather than expecting everyone to operate the same way has led to more inclusive workspace designs for a range of personalities, work styles, abilities and genders. The abundance of women’s co-working spaces sprouting up worldwide suggests that such tailored, community-focused solutions have struck a nerve—and are providing a long-overdue answer to male-dominated office spaces whose designs have traditionally excluded women’s needs. “Women are starting businesses five times faster than men, but the obstacles they encounter are exponentially greater,” says Amy Nelson, founder and CEO of The Riveter, a Seattle-headquartered women’s co-working brand with nine U.S. locations and counting. Given the wage gap, current political climate, and a litany of other challenges female workers face, it’s easy to see why women seek out a supportive, gender-specific work sanctuary.
This article originally appeared in Fall 2019 issue of Business of Home, Issue 13. Subscribe for more.