description
Configurable desk made for multifunctional co-working spaces
Category
Furniture
discipline
Industrial Design
year
2019
Co-working spaces are getting popular. Coworking offices can be found in every cities, the Nibol app that let you reverse spots to work at in cafes, studios have started turning into co-working spaces to house other creatives while managing rental cost. This was the case at a studio where I did an internship at. The space is shared with other independent designers, having a more active creative space, getting more values out of the otherwise costly space.
Challenge
With limited space available, they had to maximise space utilisation, primarily frequent rearrangement of furniture and office rearrangement of furniture and office layout whenever someone new joins in or during the weekly events. Over time, the frequent rearrangement of their furniture have begun to become too exhaustive. They sought to have their furniture more mobile and flexible. I have taken their case as an inspiration for this project: A desk fit for a multifunctional co-working space.
Insights
Open Yet Closed
Surveys have shown that personal space remains an important factor for the users. Workers have also started to see and complain about the downsides of an open office layout.
Multi-use Space
To achieve higher space utilisation rate, offices and co-working spaces have gain interests in multi-functional space concept, such as hosting events, workshops and exhibition.
Taplus is a configurable desk made for 1-4 people. It has multiple configurations depending on how many users there are and whether they wanted to have their individual table divider on. The co-workers can now retain their individual space within a highly open and sociable environment. The shared desk can be folded up within seconds and moved easily as if a large suitcase. The additional feature of digital display allows seat assignment and booking.
E-ink display shows reservation Move like a trolley/luggage Fabric table divider