Space Inside Space
Design Studio
Project Report Spring 2015
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INTRODUCTION The project was created as cooperation with the Estonian upholstery company Borg. Borg started furniture production in year 2004. Their mission is to offer high-quality and competitively priced special furniture and their own production to companies and private people. The aim of the project was to propose an innovative idea that would compliment the company’s product portfolio, to define a new direction for the company and the reasoning behind that.
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TUTORS Sven S천rmus Designer
Supervisor, Estonian Academy of Arts
Janno N천u Designer
Supervisor, Tallinn University of Technology
Martin P채rn Designer
Head of D&E, Estonian Academy of Arts
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TEAM
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CONTENTS
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Introduction Team 1. Research A Brief History of the Office The Future of the Office Market Research
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2. Borg OÜ Product Portfolio
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3. Concept Development 4. “Mine metsa” Mets
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Puu Mägi
5. Future Developments 9
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1. RESEARCH The methodology used for the research was desk research, questionnaires, interviews and observations. We started the project with desk research to find out the answers to the following questions:
created a mindmap (Figure, page 9) to get an overview of the existing trends. We discussed the changes in people’s lifestyles, to name a few:
We also planned to map out the different areas of furniture design that has opportunities for our project and research new materials and production methods for ideas and inspiration. We
• people are watching less TV and spending more time in computers • reading a book is often replaced with a Kindle or an iPad • there is increasing demand for charging the various devices • there are more people working at home • people are more densely populated • people are consuming more things which means the need for compact storage • people don’t want to wait in queues in banks, government buildings, etc.
Image. Coworking space in Rävala street, Tallinn
Image. Coworking in D&E Studio
• What are the major trends in furniture nowadays? • What are the major tendances in the markets? • What are the major changes in people’s lifestyles nowadays?
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Pillows
Cozy aesthetics
Coziness as a reaction to the fuss of the outside world
Integration of device chargers, etc.
Movement Self-cleaning fabrics Shapeshifting
Technology
Interactive furniture
Non-petrol based fibres Wood
Individuality ROOM collections by Erik Olovsson & Kyuhyung Cho
LED
Customizable solutions
DIY trend
Eco-friendly solutions
Cork
Anti-allergenic materials
TRENDS IN FURNITURE DESIGN
Firewood chair
Playful furniture
Compact furniture
Round Swing Table
Multi-functionality Bookcase hides furniture
Aesthetics
Acoustic solutions
Modular solutions
Warm colours Minimalism Wool
Scandinavian
Uncluttered space Wood
Cuddly fabrics
Ethnic Elegant simplicity
Light-toned wood
Image. Coworking in TUT lounge area
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Animals Machines Family members Neighbours
Music People
Acoustics
Inside
Partners
Outside
Noise
Street noise Weather
Aesthetic Hearing
Sound
Visual
Touching
Form
Texture People
Light
Temperature
Surface
Form
Air
Hardness/softness
Daylight
Smelling
Surface From outside
Ventilation
Neighbours
Color Candle
Quality
Food
Perfume
Color
Lamp
Air
From inside Nature
Artificial
Natural
Winter/cold
Toilet
Materials
Window City smog/dust
We found that because the furniture/upholstery business is such a major area, we should narrow it down and focus on something more specific. We chose the area of office furniture because there is where we thought the biggest opportunities for Borg might be. Therefore our research continued in the direction of analysing the changes in the working culture and office life.
the time a person spends on a task at home and what are the influencers. Here we can see that a major area of issues is the amount of distractions that arise almost every step of the way. These can be caused by outside factors but also the person working himself. Basic needs like having to use the toilet or grab a meal are distracting factors that tangle with the focus on the working process.
We created questionnaires for people working at home or in a coworking office and created a map that we later named ‘topic map’ which maps out the emotional qualities that influence the person working at home. The aim was to find out how we could improve the quality of
Next, we decided to make observational research, observing people working in co-working offices. We made a trip to the rooms of Mektory. Unfortunately there were very few people there at the time. We are also observing the people working in our studio and interview-
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Physical distance between work and home
Physical
EMOTIONAL QUALITY
Multifunctional room
Privacy
Separate room Sitting too much Health condition
Intellectual
Distractions
Privacy
Furniture
Communication You
Aesthetics
Ergonomics Teleworking
Others
Bodily needs
r psychology
Seating TV
Food
Pets
Dogs
Other
Other noise
Music Internet
People
Cats
Storage
Table
Entertainment
Room divider
Books Toilet
Walk Eat
Play
process. We found out that there might be a need for something that would help a person be excluded and keep focused, while allowing an easy change for group work. We created a layout plan, where we clearly demonstrated the problems surrounding co-working offices. We tried to visualize the whole office space: rooms, kitchen, restroom, wardrobe - and analyzed what we could improve with the help of Borg.
ing everyone we know who have experience with teleworking. We discovered that TUT’s Marketing Management lecturer Rene Arvola is also very familiar with the teleworking subject. It’s one of his main areas of research. Therefore we wrote him and he gave us some information and links to his research. We also visited Coworking Space Tallinn in Rävala street. There were only 3 rooms arranged in a co-working office style. We made our own observation and also talked with one of the office workers. Unfortunately there were few people, some of workers were working together, some of them separately and in the third room they had a meeting, like a teamwork
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A Brief History of the Office
Bürolandschaft
1960
1904
1968
Taylorism
Action office
arrangements for designers, to make chatting easier—but the layout stayed undivided.
Taylorism - American engineer Frederick Taylor was obsessed with efficiency and oversight and is credited as one of the first people to actually design an office space. Taylor crowded workers together in a completely open environment while bosses looked on from private offices, much like on a factory floor.
Action office - Bürolandschaft inspired Herman Miller to create a product based on the new European workplace philosophy. Actionwas the first modular business furniture system, with low dividers and flexible work surfaces. It’s still in production today and widely used. In fact, you probably know Action by its generic, more sinister name: cubicle.
Bürolandschaft - The German “office landscape” brought the socialist values of 1950s Europe to the workplace: Management was no longer cosseted in executive suites. Local arrangements might vary by function—sideby-side workstations for clerks or pinwheel
Cube farm - It’s the cubicle concept taken to the extreme. As the ranks of middle managers 14
Cube farm
First co-working office opened
1980
1994 Virtual office
2005
2000 Networking
swelled, a new class of employee was created: too important for a mere desk but too junior for a window seat. Facilities managers accommodated them in the cheapest way possible, with modular walls. The sea of cubicles was born.
Neworking - During the past decade, furniture designers have tried to part the sea of cubicles and encourage sociability—without going nuts. Knoll, for example, created systems with movable, semi-enclosed pods and connected desks whose shape separates work areas in lieu of dividers. Most recently, Vitra unveiled furniture in which privacy is suggested if not realized. Its large tables have low dividers that cordon off personal space but won’t guard personal calls.
Virtual office - Ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day’s LA headquarters was a Frank Gehry masterpiece. But the interior, dreamed up by the company’s CEO, was a fiasco. The virtual office had no personal desks; you grabbed a laptop in the morning and scrambled to claim a seat. Productivity nose-dived, and the firm quickly became a laughingstock. 15
The Future of the Office Offices are not what they used to be - and that’s largely a good thing. New technology as well as changing attitudes and working practices have led some (especially hip new media and tech companies) to go all out with the design of their offices, installing slides, play areas and even indoor farms. A great example of this is the Google offices. No two offices are the same, though visitors to any office can expect to find a few common features: murals and decorations expressing local personality; Googlers sharing cubes, yurts and “huddles”; video games, pool tables and pianos; cafes and “microkitchens” stocked with healthy food; and good old fashioned whiteboards for spur-of-the-moment brainstorming.
Google Dublin campus
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Google Dublin campus
Google Tel Aviv campus
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Market Research
In office interior design, acoustic panels and partitions are the focus with many product designers. Private pods and informal meeting spaces are needed The trend of installing wall panels has increasingly gained popularity as a great sound proofing treatment. In this, the decorative wall panels are installed over the walls and ceilings of a room. These wall panels help a lot to reduce the sound reverberation by simply controlling the exterior noise while absorbing the interior high pitch sound waves. Thus, they provide the high wuality sound outputs that are extremely good, clear and crisp with no echo.
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2. BORG OÜ Borg OÜ is an Estonian furniture manufacturing and development company that launched in year 2004 in Tallinn, Estonia. Their furniture salon is situated in Liivalaia 40 with the companies Tank, Piel and Sunorek.
restaurants (Restaurant Ö, SteakHouse), office buildings (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and many other public spaces (Tallinn Airport, VolksWagen, KUMU, etc.)
Borg’s mission is to offer high-quality made-toorder furniture with competitive pricing for companies and private customers. Most of Borg’s production is made-to-order (around 95%). These products include anything from lounge suites and footrests to stools and armchairs. Borg’s clientelle includes hotels (Swissôtel, Sokos Hotel Viru), banks (SEB, Swedbank),
Recently Borg launched several products with fascinating acoustic solutions. One of these products is the new acoustic HAUS (image above), line of furniture that allows for a good working environment, and also the opportunity to be separated. At the same time it’s kind of a phone speaker, where you can have your private space for important conversations.
Model “Haus”
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“We are glad to deliver you furniture which is designed to work in harmony with the environment. Good design is the power to generate innovative ideas which create real transformation. Continuous investment into production and product development helps to ensure that products are designed according to customer needs.” - Mart Jõhvikas, President and CEO of Borg OÜ
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Product Portfolio
Borg’s product portfolio encompasses well designed artefacts that make living more comfortable and beautiful. They are manufacturing soft funiture - chairs, decorative chairs and armchairs; sofas, beds and bedends. But also some wooden furniture (tables, shelves, etc.). Borg has seen that the new ‘must have’ in the offices and public spaces at the moment are acoustic furniture and accessories so they have also started to design acoustic furniture (“Custo”, “CC”, “Hallo”, page 26-27). Our recommended improvement for their product portfolio would be a set of ‘parasite’ products, accessories that could be easily installed and put anywhere.
Model “Cona”
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Model “Enter”
Model “Rapide”
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Bedend
Model “Custo”
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Model “CC”
Model “Hallo”
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3. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AUDIO/VISUAL DISTRACTIONS
STORAGE
A QUIET PLACE TO USE THE PHONE/SKYPE
LACK OF SPACE
PRIVACY FLEXIBILITY OF WORKSPACE
ORGANISATION
FOCUSING We mapped out the areas that emerged during back. our research where we could design something useful.The concept we created tackles most of Here’s what they thought: them (marked with green above). • The overall feedback was positive. There was laughter at some of the concepts but in We started the sketching process. Here are a positive way. all reasons, why we decided to develop our • They liked the nature theme because everyproject in this direction. We visited two creative body can adapt to it. It made them feel safe. studios for our research. First one was Identity • They thought that they probably wouldn’t where we met up with Ionel Lehari and asked use the small christmas trees as they would for his feedback and also feedback from some likely need the cover to be behind their of their employees. Firstly, he invited two peoback so others wouldn’t see their work, not ple from their design team. We explained to in front of the computer. They have really them our ideas and showed the sketches and used to working head-to-head with the other asked them to be brutally honest in their feeddesigners. 26
• They would likely use the larger mountain screens. • They thought that the christmas tree would be too much for some offices. It’s too literal and childish and many people wouldn’t go there. • It’s good that it’s such a universal idea and scalable. Then, two people from the financial side were brought in and we had the same conversation.
Their thoughts: • “The products would have fit in nicely in my old office in a factory building” • Mountain shades - why not, maybe • Christmas tree - it’s so hard to find a private place to talk on the phone in our office so it would be very necessary • ‘Mine metsa’ - it’s not very practical. I wouldn’t use it. Well, maybe on friday nigth after the work is done. I would like some space around my head, I like the tree more. • Grass - good for creatives, not for us. • Table - strange and different. The position wouldn’t be good (too bent forward). It’s definately not something you would have your first meeting with a person in.
• They really liked the cord organiser on the table and they would definately use this one. The second office we visited was Age McCann. The comments we got there: • Very cool. Ready made things that can be installed anywhere. • They liked the larger mountains. They thought the smaller ones would go more in bank offices.
• They often have teams and teamwork and rarely any meeting tables available so they really like the table. • They liked the ‘mine metsa’ as well. They also have a big problem of not finding a place to talk on the phone so sometimes they have to use the restroom for phone calls. But grass would probably take up a lot of space. • Everyone thougth the clothes hanger was okay and would go nicely with the rest of the products, but no strong feelings. The main idea of concept is to create space in space for offices, emotional value and emotional quality for employes. So we focused on 27
nature theme because everybody can adapt to it. It made people feel safe. Workspace isn’t flexible enough to quickly adapt to the needs of the workers. Because we, as much as possible tried to made emotionally comfortable accessories for workspace. The core of the concept was to create poetical, emotional, playful shapes for offices and also reduce acoustic and visual distractions.
Emotions play such a big role in our lives. So we tried to focus on color, shape and softness. This ready made things that can be installed anywhere, and create a comfortable environment for employees where they can see that they are spending whole day in office which gives them opportunity to arrange things in this way in which they prefer and feel comfortable.
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4. “MINE METSA” “Mine metsa” (‘Go to the forest’) is our proposed new design platform for Borg. The concept encompasses various acoustic office accessories, so called parasite products that can be easily installed into any home or corporate office, university or other place where efficient work style is needed.
Create new defined spaces inside bigger spaces easily.
The base for a productive workplace.
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Focus. In order to get your work done as efficiently as possible you need to be able to focus. You have an aim and we want to help you reach it. But it takes more than just a quiet box without distractions. We know what it takes to create a motivating work environment. “Mine metsa” creates a poetical and playful, yet functional approach to focusing on what’s important. Yet tested and functional, it’s more than just a noise-absorbing product line. The products immediately become jewels in the public spaces and office interior designs.
Foreclosure. What “mine metsa” really does, is it creates new spaces inside bigger spaces. The tested noise-absorbing structure fights acoustic distractions while well thought-through product measurements protect you from visual distratcions. The products are designed to dampen the noise level and screen off the office landscape. There are thousands of ways to combine the products, creating meeting areas, workstations, phone booths and what ever else your imagination allows.
Flexibilty. “Mine metsa” sound-absorbing accessories help to organize the spaces inside bigger spaces better. These ready-made artefacts can be installed anywhere, creating a customized, comfortable environment for the employees. People spend a lot of their time at work, so they should have to option to adjust their working space for maximum comfort and efficiency. The products are designed in an economically-concious way so that the packaging and shipping is very compact.
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To stand out To create meaningful designs To excel
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METS
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METS (“forest�) is a mountable acoustic ceiling panel system. The panels have 13 soft hanging strands which are fixed to the panel with velcro. That makes the strands easily removable and washable. The panels are made of sound-absorbing materials, which help to reduce the echo in large office buildings. The panels can be arranged in various patterns, which will give customers the opportunity to create their own dividers or spaces inside bigger spaces. METS will be available in various lengths, suitable for any room height. The panels are standard dropped ceiling panel size (60x60 cm). The functions include echo reduction, a quiet space to make phone calls and acoustic and visual room dividing.
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Endless possibilities in combining, creating your own spaces and separators.
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100-4000 mm
600 mm
140 mm 600 mm
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PUU
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PUU (‘tree’) is an acoustic space divider. It consist of three parts which can be layed on top of each other, creating a spruce-tree-like artefact. It’s made of thick felt which is reinforced with sound-absorbing materials. The triangular parts can be layed on top of each other vertically or manipulated to create windblown playful shapes. The triangles come with a wooden construction which helps the tree to stand tall and sturdy. The ready-made height of the tree is 150 cm. The parts are designed in a way so that the shipping is economical and safe, as the parts can be pocketed inside each other. PUU is a great way to separate working stations, it’s easy to move and will quickly create new spaces inside bigger spaces where employees can focus on their working process.
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910 mm
550 mm
400 mm
800 mm
1000 mm
400 mm
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MAGI
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MAGI (‘mountain’) is an acoustic table screen. It is a flexible workspace divider which consists of five panels that allow the screen to take the shape required. It is easily foldable and storable. It’s gives people the opportunity to save space and create their own working area, without visual distractions, which adds emotional quality to the working process. The length of MAGI is 110 cm and the average height 45 cm. It is made of thick felt fabric, insulated with sound-absorbing materials. The velcro triangles in each end of MAGI enable to create longer mountain ranges for group work or other use cases.
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45 mm 110 mm 65
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5. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS The products themselves are not yet ready to be marketed. What has been created during this project is a design platform for Borg’s future products. This is in a conceptual stage and future developments are needed. In this chapter we will propose a few ways of continuing with the product development. Firstly, we have worked out manufacturing processes for the three products which we chose to prototype. These are not ideal, though. The manufacturig process could be made more efficient and increase the product quality. Secondly, for prototyping cheap, available
material were used. We suggest a thorough market research for available similar materials that would have good acoustic properties, as well as soft, natural feel. Lastly, before launching the product line, we recommend proper acoustic testing to get precise data as we believe this would give the company the edge to succeed in the vast market. We hope that Borg will see the same potential in the products that we do and that proper R&D and marketing will pay off in profit.
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