Office furniture information

• Mark Dowse
• Office furniture information
• September 17, 2019

Office design features to make a fantastic office space?

We take a look at our the 5 office design features that make a fantastic co-working space!

1 – Collaboration spaces

Office furniture manufactures have met the challenge. There are lots of options with office furniture layouts to create space within a project for this. With increasing popularity, collaborative areas create a space for new ideas and communication. Therefore, creating zones which act as a creative hub are vital for a start-up or freelancer. Co-working spaces are able to provide a ‘safe-space’ to work alongside new professionals. Allowing individuals to have the flexibility to work in a collaborative environment.

• Mark Dowse
• Office furniture information
• August 10, 2017

Mesh vs Upholstered Fabric Office Chair

Specialist office furniture dealers MD Business Interiors based on Marsh Barton in Exeter, Devon want to make your life easier. So, you are in the market for a new office chair but you cannot decide between mesh or an upholstered fabric or padded office chair? We hope this blog will help you!

Upholstered fabric or padded office chairs give the look of comfort. At the end of the working day, you would always choose your upholstered comfortable armchair over your wood or plastic kitchen chair. Would a mesh chair give the same comfort during the working day?

So lets compare the comfort of fabric with mesh. Mesh has gained in popularity in the comfort stakes as technology of the mesh weave has become better. It may not look as comfortable but mesh is very supportive which therefore provides great comfort.

The main benefit with mesh is its breathability. Hot summer days may be few and far between in the UK but centrally heated warm office environments are not. A regular complaint with an upholstered back on an office chair is it is too warm and the user ends up with a sweaty back – ugh!

Durability is another key advantage to the mesh. The mesh weave won’t lose it’s shape, is tightly woven and so very strong. Upholstered or padded office chairs can get torn and the padding can begin to look squashed or sunken in areas ageing the chair. The fabric you choose can wear out so check out the Martindale Rub Test rating before you buy.

Another bonus factor for mesh vs upholstered office chairs is hygiene and cleaning. This is largely due to the fact that the mesh does not get as dirty. No sweaty back equals no sweaty stained chair!

Moving on to colour finishes. Fabric office chairs are ideal if you wish to colour coordinate with a room or match your seating with company branding colours. The choice of fabric colours is literally endless. Some fabric office chairs are available in over 50 fabric colour choices. So whether you are looking for Paradise, Midnight or Sunset in your workplace, there is sure to be a colour for you.

Mesh seat and back chair colours on the other hand are generally fairly limited. Black is widely available. So if you like black your on a winner. Other colours like white, blue, grey, red, orange or green are available from certain manufacturers.

However, if you are looking for something a little different in colour then upholstered fabric office chairs will provide more choice.

So in summary, the comfort stakes both are fairly equal.

However if durability and something which will age well are important to you – choose mesh.

If a range of colour choices is required – opt for upholstered.

Finally if you are still struggling to decide then consider both fabric and mesh in one chair. Go for a padded office chair seat with mesh back.

For information on either option of chair call 01392 834980 or email via this hyperlink here.

(Original post by N Gillespie of Saxen Office chairs Oct 15)

• Mark Dowse
• Office furniture information
• June 20, 2017

What will your office look like in 10 years?

MD Business Interiors are an Exeter based office furniture and office fit out company who refurbish commercial buildings and offices all over Devon and Cornwall.

We feature the first in a series of articles about the workplace of the future by Jodi Williams, an associate vice president at CallisonRTKL.

A desk from Robert Propst and George Nelson’s 1968 “Action Office” for Herman Miller. .

One of the most popular questions we hear is: what is the workplace of the future? We are not futurists, but we are strategists, designers, and workers ourselves. While we cannot definitively say what the workplace of the future will entail, we can, with a reasonable amount of certainty, make predictions for the next five years and offer overall trends and direction for what we expect to see over the upcoming 10 to 25 years (even futurists get it wrong sometimes).

In order to discuss the workplace of the future, it is important to understand that the workplace is bigger than a set of desks and collaborative spaces or the strategies surrounding their use. Over the course of this series, we will examine several components that affect the workplace (yes, technology is integral to all of them!):

• The worker, and the changing dynamics of who we are and what we do
• The work location, and how we understand place and its impact on where we work
• The building, or where our workplace is housed and how we use it

It is important to consider that the future of work and the workplace also relies on a number of other factors:

• The economy/business cycle (in the U.S., the average expansion period lasts five years, and the average contraction period is 11 months)
• Globalization
• Geopolitical volatility
• Climate change
• Urbanisation (urbanisation is anticipated to be at less than one percent per five year period; however, it is much higher in least developed countries and lower income countries)
• Artificial intelligence (does the singularity occur by 2040?)

The beginning of the future workplace

Image courtesy of the author.

Before exploring the future, it is helpful to remind ourselves of the past. The modern concept of the office began with the merchant class. The offices themselves were initially very much like what we picture in stories like A Christmas Carol: merchants and clerks work in a largely open area on the ground floor of a building, while the merchant and his family live on the floors above.

As companies grew, so did their office needs. One of the earliest examples is the East India Company: initially serving as a trade group, this company expanded to handle Britain’s imperial interests. In the 1600 and 1700s, this corporation housed enormous amounts of paperwork, arriving by mail. While their real estate portfolio was massive, the most well-known facility is East India House. Originally a home, the building was demolished and redesigned to accommodate the growing company. The large facility included not only offices, but also large meeting rooms and a courtyard/garden, which was used for receptions.

“The modern concept of the office began with the merchant class: merchants and clerks work in a largely open area on the ground floor of a building, while the merchant and his family live on the floors above”.

Fast-forward to the 1900s and the introduction of the open plan office in the United States: Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1906 Larkin Administration Building  in Buffalo, New York was among the first to feature an open floor plan. This arrangement evolved into the Mad Men-style office: executives and managers seated in large window offices located around the building perimeter, and rows of desks housing secretarial pools in the center.

The late 1950s and early ‘60s brought about a new strategy: Burolandschaft. Created by Quickborner, a German design group, Burolandschaft broke up rows of desks into organic groupings, with the intent of creating a free-form environment that provided flexibility, while still keeping offices around the perimeter.

This strategy eventually gave way to what is perhaps the most iconic office innovation: the cubicle. Robert Propst, a designer for Herman Miller, devised the Action Office as a way to transform the workplace from a wasteland of rows of enclosed offices into a more open and space-efficient solution. Action Office debuted in the 1960s and the cubicle has been a mainstay of offices in the U.S. ever since.

Today, most companies see the workplace as a source of competitive advantage, not simply a cost burden.

As the Action Office morphed into “Dilbertville,” it became clear that the workplace needed a change. Workplace strategy was introduced to the mainstream around 1985, when Philip Stone and Robert Luchetti declared “Your Office is Where You Are” in the Harvard Business Review. At the time, emerging technologies (like the cellular phone) made the once-novel concept of working away from the desk a real possibility, and soon the physical office began reflecting the idea of activity settings.

In 1995, the eminent book Workplace by Design by Cornell University’s Franklin Becker and Yale University’s Fritz Steele was published, marking one of the first times the design of the physical workplace was directly tied to an organization’s business success. By 2002, the U.S. General Services Administration launched the Workplace 20|20 research and development program, bringing together a consortium of experts to develop a toolkit that enabled Federal Agencies to realign work settings to support their business needs. This program evolved into GSA’s Total Workplace Program, which continues as standard practice today.

In 2005, the Journal of Corporate Real Estate published an article titled, “Workplace strategy: What it is and why you should care.” By this point, major corporations had jumped on board with workplace strategy. Deutsche Bank was among the first companies to establish a strategy: db Smart Office (in 2002). Microsoft began researching its own ways of working in 2004 and 2005, eventually beginning the Workplace Advantage Program. Both programs continue to evolve to this day.

“Today, most companies see the workplace as a source of competitive advantage, not simply a cost burden”.

Facility costs, including design fees, construction, and operations and maintenance are a small part of the overall corporate cost: staff costs, including salaries and benefits, typically account for about 90 percent of business operating costs. With this knowledge, companies are seeking ways to make their real estate work better, rather than simply cost less. We anticipate this trend will continue long into the future.

In the upcoming months, my articles will feature thoughts on the future worker, commute, and building and how changes in each of these areas will drive changes in the way the workplace is owned, operated, designed, and used.

• Mark Dowse
• Office furniture information
• December 8, 2016

New Sit-Stand Desk office furniture range for Devon specialists.

Sit-Stand Desking

Adjust the height of your desk for maximum comfort throughout
the day with the touch of a button.

Our Sit-Stand desk has an electric motor that allows the user to easily adjust
their position from seated to standing at the touch of a button.

Sit-Stand desks feature wave or rectangular desk tops with white or silver metal work frames.

Desk tops are available in a choice of wood finishes.

Beech, Birch, Light Oak, White, Maple, Walnut and Cherry

An additional wooden modesty panel is also available providing privacy
without taking away the aesthetic appeal of the desk.

If you would like any more information on these or any of our office furniture ranges please contact
our Exeter office furniture office on 01392 834980 or via the contact page on the website.

We are independent office furniture dealers based in Exeter where we help clients with all types of commercial office and warehouse refurbishment and fit out. We are specialists in space planning and feasibility studies to ensure you make informed decisions on your office or property portfolio.

To have an initial meeting to discuss your project please feel free to get in touch.

• Mark Dowse
• Office furniture information
• November 18, 2016

Are open-plan offices good for business?

If you are business owner in Exeter or Devon currently looking at planning an office furniture update or a full office refurbishment or fit out, we have below an interesting news story that might help you make up your mind on what type of layout you want for your staff.

Are open-plan offices good for business?

Some leaders believe open-plan offices encourage healthy collaboration, others say that they provide unwelcome distractions and hamper productivity. So are open-plan work-spaces really a boon to businesses?

Yes, says John Jennings, associate director at Chris Cooper Business Elevation and a member of IoD East Midlands

John Jennings who argues for open-plan offices, “In our rapidly moving digital economy, organisations need improved levels of engagement more than ever. Open plan facilitates improved communication at all levels and across teams”.

Office ‘banter’ or colleague interaction is often the social glue that helps to bind teams together. Concerns about employees being dissatisfied with their environments can be allayed by involving people in redesign through consultation. Scary statistics about poorly workers spreading germs can be countered with simple hygiene and health and safety policies.

Management should encourage appropriate times and situations for social chat and get involved with their people. Leaders can also work on developing their emotional intelligence by practising empathy and good listening skills. Where open-plan works best is where a well-designed environment includes provision for interruption-free working.

An open-plan working environment encourages interaction, open communication, collaboration and information exchange, without formality. A bonus of a no-barriers environment is that many meetings can be avoided by encouraging people into huddles to exchange views and information. Walls act as barriers to all of this and can create artificial fiefdoms, which benefit big egos, but little else.

No, says Caroline Arnold, executive coach at Caroline Arnold Coaching and a member of IoD South West

Caroline Arnold who argues against open-plan offices, “Open-plan offices are thought to be great for collaboration but the truth is that employees wanting to ask a ‘quick question’ may interrupt you constantly, or include you in a conversation that you don’t need to be part of”.

Employees usually crave some time on their own to think, work privately and finish tasks without the constant interruptions and don’t feel they can say anything for fear of not being seen as a team player. I believe this is one reason why more employees are requesting the flexibility to work from home – purely to have some space to think, focus on complex tasks and not feel so stressed out by not completing anything during the day in the office.

According to Canada Life Group Insurance research in 2014, employees working in an open-plan office are more likely to experience higher levels of stress, which may lead to them taking more sick days. The distractions, higher stress and increased sickness absence ultimately lead to a drop in productivity. @Carnoldcoaching

To find out which layout would be best for your business get in touch with s for a chat about our AutoCAD space planning via mark@mdinteriorsdevon.com