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We take a peek at what’s to be found at Orgatec, at the biennial event dedicated to the world of work

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Words by: Cathy Hayward

All eyes are turning to Cologne, where this month the biennial show Orgatec opens. We take a sneak peek at what it promises.

Movement is the thing, so hop on board with Buzzibalance, a low balance board from 13x9 Design

‘IF YOU want to see the whole world of work, come to Cologne!’ exclaims the official Orgatec message, as if Disney had drawn an all-singing, all-dancing immersive world of office-based fun. Glib as the statement sounds, it is, in fact, quite sincere.

Movement is the thing, so hop on board with Buzzibalance, a low balance board from 13x9 Design

More than 50,000 visitors now attend the biennial event, there to see hundreds of exhibitors do their best to convince that their furniture ought to be chosen over anyone else’s.

Buzzijungle was developed by Jonas Van Put to ‘push the traditional boundaries of the workplace’

Stand strong
The stands at Orgatec are indicators of the future of workplace design. Planned for months in advance and meticulously built at great cost, these temporary workspaces are the result of so much of the day-to-day, project-to-project experience manufacturers have with designers battling to provide the ultimate working environment for result-driven businesses the world over. The seemingly endless halls serve to inspire and enthuse the industry.

The slim Quick stand, from Humanscale, enables standing at a keyboard while the computer is at standard desk height

One of the purposes of visiting Orgatec is to ‘trend spot’ while exploring the hundreds of stands. What’s the latest colour palette? Which office layouts are driving what typography of furniture forward? While the perfect office design continues to morph and skew from one type of working practice trend to another, it becomes harder and harder to see into the future.

The elegant Trea chair, designed by Todd Bracher, will also feature on the Humanscale stand

The workplace is now so complex that trends for singular solution layouts, one-type-fits-all furniture and even simplified colour schemes don’t seem to cut it. Helen Owen, director of business development at Bisley, says: ‘I would like to see manufacturers offering choices that recognise not all roles can or should be agile, and that not everyone wants to work digitally all of the time.’

Pivot from the new collection of mobile writable work services, designed by IdeaPaint in collaboration with Primo Orphilla

Solutions
Given the difficulty in providing an assortment of solutions in one office, many designers now focus on designing product solutions in interiors, in architecture, in product design. Does the chair do enough? Is there more that desk could do? How can storage be used to delineate?

Pivot from the new collection of mobile writable work services, designed by IdeaPaint in collaboration with Primo Orphilla

Ergonomic research & development at Humanscale, always researching what office-based problems need solving, has resulted in many intelligently engineered products over the years. In October, it will be challenging the ‘traditional workspace’ through several new products from new and existing designer collaborators that aren’t just comfortable, but also act as assistants by encouraging movement.

Its Quickstand Lite for example serves to provide the option to stand while working at a computer on a standard-height desk by offering a platform for keyboard and mouse, with arm support. A slim design, Quickstand Lite could settle onto any office desk without encroaching on the surrounding style. ‘I’d like to see some truly innovative thinking in the use of materials and technology...to create really useful and intuitive functionality for the user,’ says Owen. ‘I was reading about the Smart Office Materials exhibit on the Orgatec blog; it looks really interesting.’

The Vessel light, developed by Todd Bracher for Humanscale, is ‘functional and pure’ and made in fine quartz crystal

Indeed, Smart Office Materials, an exhibition by Haute Innovation for Orgatec, will be the place to discover how various technologies are being integrated or exploited to enhance materials in quality and ability. The event will feature highlights with intriguing names – Potato Furniture; Fungi Mutarium; Wooden Leather and Hollow Cellulose Spheres – this will be the place to learn about developments that will push the design world and throw up questions about sustainability, responsibility and true innovation.

The Occo chair, with dozens of versions available, is part of a chair and table range by jehs+laub for Wilkhahn
The Occo chair, with dozens of versions available, is part of a chair and table range by jehs+laub for Wilkhahn

Work hard
Perhaps thankful that Orgatec only takes place every other year, Vitra is banding together architecture, design and technology brands in its in-depth installation, dubbed Work. In a move that could have been predicted given its ever-increasing popularity, the immersive manufacturer is to take on an entire hall in a sort of exhibition of what constitutes the modern workplace and how these spaces have evolved.

Described as ‘a communal and holistic vision of the workplace’ Vitra is indulging its explorative nature, opening the space to a variety of complementary brands including Artek (now part of the Vitra family), luxury kitchen maker Bulthaup, wood flooring expert Dinesen, IdeaPaint, which creates ingenious collaborative workplace tools, fabric and textiles perfectionist Kvadrat, Mercedes-Benz, Samsung and Swisscom.

The Occo chair, with dozens of versions available, is part of a chair and table range by jehs+laub for Wilkhahn

Jonathan Olivares and Pernilla Ohrstedt collaborated across the Atlantic to conceive Work, a space so large it has streets (with, perhaps, a bit of traffic). You’d be advised to hop on one of the daily tours around the Vitra hall, not only to take in all the information about the myriad activities going on there, but also so as not to get lost. You may even be able to get a lift in a car. Not often is the word ‘landscape’ used accurately in describing an interior or workspace, but here you go.

Trends
Helen Owen is holding out for trends: ‘My predictions for Orgatec would be for the same kind of trends that we’ve seen at Salone, CDW and Neocon this year. Lots of soft seating in earthy/neutral tones and use of more “tactile” fabrics like velvet, leather and big-weaves rather than felt; warm metallics and mixed materials (steel, glass, plastic, wood) in furniture; height-adjustable desks everywhere; and acoustic pods, screens, panels et cetera.’

Mark Bailey, owner and founder of By Bailey, predicts a continuation of breakout furniture that resembles the domestic furniture of the Seventies: ‘The furniture of Seventies’ homes now pops up in offices – vintage styles are so popular now. Knightsbridge Furniture, as an example, formed in the Thirties with a factory in the north of England, has been making quality soft furnishings for care homes. It noticed the trend in the market for workplace furniture that resembles what it’s been manufacturing for years, so has employed eminent designers such as David Fox to design retro-inspired product for the workplace.’

The Trend Forum (Hall 6) will host talks with, seemingly, a focus on the future. With talk titles including See Further/ Go Further, The Future of Work and New Work Order, this might be a good stop for anyone looking for insights.

New to EU
Providing what will surely be one of the fair’s most-fun Kodak moments, BuzziSpace will give BuzziJungle and BuzziBalance their European debut. More than the climbing frame it looks like, BuzziJungle was developed by Jonas Van Put to ‘push the traditional boundaries of the workplace’. The bright yellow structure certainly does that, layering platforms for groups or individuals to sit and lounge on while working.

Between this and BuzziBalance, a group of low balance boards and stools designed by 13x9 Design, BuzziSpace continue to prove that functionality and fun aren’t mutually exclusive. Designers Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub (jehs+laub) have come up with an exceptionally sleek chair and table range for Wilkhahn called Occo. The range sets out to interact with different atmospheres; available with bases in various materials, the table and chair are environment chameleons with 72 versions of the chair possible.

Todd Bracher developed the Vessel light, in a new direction for Humanscale. The light, ‘functional and pure’, seems almost too simple for the ergonomics brand. But Bracher designed the light with physics and optical engineering in mind. Made of fine quartz crystal, the material was chosen not only for its elegance but also its performance capabilities, obviously. Also by Bracher the Trea chair range, all elegance and seamless engineering, will feature on the stand.

IdeaPaint, creator of the first high-quality writable surface paints, will give a first European outing to a range of writable work surfaces designed in collaboration with Primo Orpilla, the founder of the USA’s O+A Studio. Hive and Pivot are to all intents and purpose whiteboards, but with the design input of Orpilla both are desirable objects for the workplace. Pivot particularly blows a breath of fresh air to the category – a new piece of kit for collaborative working, it is at once a whiteboard and, on a literal pivot, a standing-height writable table.

Orgatec 2016 is shaping up to be an event of consciousness. An industry that is often accused of saturation is now looking inwards – bashing out pretty product after product is old hat and unsustainable on many levels. Today, manufacturers are thinking more about the purpose of each piece they develop. Discovering what comes out of this awakening will be fascinating. For a full list of exhibitors, and to discover more about the schedule of Orgatec events, visit www.orgatec.com