Designing For The Workplace: The Best Of Orgatec

With ‘Creativity Works’ as its motto, Orgatec highlights the best of ergonomics. Born from the first ‘West German office trade fair’ in 1953, the conference primarily showcases the best of office supplies, organizers, and furnishings. While today this fair is more cutting-edge than ever, the central belief remains the same: the office environment has a great impact on work performance.

With 650 exhibitors hailing from 40 different countries in attendance, the office implements available at this year’s fair will include some of the leading officer furniture manufacturers and organizational specialists. For example, the Turkish company Bürotime will feature customizable furniture, which is organized based on various aspects of office life including, social, solo, meeting, and teamwork. With these functions in mind, the furniture is designed to most effectively meet the needs of the modern office.

König + Neurath will be presenting their latest models for organizational implements like their ‘CablePort’ series, which includes cutting-edge touch-screen signal transmission systems, ergonomic cable ports, and other media technologies. Meanwhile, designs from the ever trendy Scandinavian aesthetic will be present at the show. Their novelties extend beyond conventional indoor office work to introduce ideas for outdoor work environments.

The furniture design company, Haworth, approaches the products presented at the fair with the notion that, ‘With an ideal combination of furnishings, colors and materials, lighting and acoustic solutions as well as the integration of technology, the [office] place becomes a place of well-being.’ The highlight of their repertoire this year is expected to be their new series of revolving office chairs called ‘Fern,’ which promises maximum comfort and revolutionary form.

HAUTE INNOVATION, a company based in Berlin, places its efforts on developing the best sustainable materials from which office supplies are built. Dr. Sasha Peters, an expert on the subject who will be attending this year’s conference, explains, ‘The smart office of the future would be unimaginable without innovations in materials. Innovative materials and intelligent design can play a part in making workplaces for creative knowledge workers more multifunctional, sustainable and smarter.’

Another highly anticipated event of the conference is the ‘smart co-working lobby,’ with an interactive prototype of the creative new co-working module, which was designed in collaboration with the prestigious interior design firm, brandherm + krumrey interior architecture (b-k-i). Other fascinating projects of this nature include ‘The Life at Work,’ which is an exhibit created by the furniture company, Vitra, in conjunction with architects, Jonathan Olivares and Pernilla Ohrstedt. It offers insight into the working world of the future under the title, ‘design at its best’.

In all, Orgatec will focus on facilitating new approaches to office life with an emphasis on digital technology and holistic working environments. The items were designed with the diversity of the many different forms of company culture that have arisen in the contemporary corporate world.