Five emerging office furniture trends

As the furniture industry enters into the school and government buying season, typically from June to September, OFM, an office and school furniture manufacturers and distributor, is seeing five emerging office furniture trends. Blake Zalcberg, COO of OFM, lists the five emerging office furniture trends:
1. Dark woods are making a comeback. People are choosing darker walnut colors over lighter woods as many are drawn to the natural, earthy look that dark woods give.
2. Technology is being infused into office furniture designs. Electrically-wired tables and cut outs for computer hardware are becoming popular to accommodate demands for employees to easily plug in their laptop or other devices.
3. Contemporary office spaces are replacing traditional work environments. There is less use of panel workstations and more use of community spaces so people work in closer proximity to each other with less privacy, with a focus on collaborative instead of individual.
4. An increased demand for white laminate desktops. Productivity is key with any piece of office furniture. The white laminates provide a clean, blank workspace that can spur creativity for the user.
5. Government-affiliated groups are asking for more green products. This group of purchasers wants to make sure the office furniture they buy practices what they preach to the larger public, which is why there is an increased demand from government agencies for sustainable material and green certified products.

A cure for chair butt?

Inspired by the playfulness of an orange peel, Varier Furniture is unleashing its Peel Club chair at NeoCon, June 15-17.
This chair is more than good looking—it’s a pleasurable experience for the body. Goodbye chair butt??! The organic shape allows users to vary their sitting position while lounging, reading, listening or plotting evil (my personal favorite).
The ergonomic chair has been wildly popular in the European contract market, selling more than 55,000 units in 10 months. To translate: If you don’t like this chair, then you’re not as sophisticated or cool as our chain-smoking, swatch car driving, and beret wearing brethren across the pond.
The Peel Club is made from 100 percent recycled materials and is available in eco-friendly wool and hundreds of color and fabric combinations.

Chicago throws down: Green Office Challenge is on

Why so grim? Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s press conference cronies look like they just witnessed the killing of the world’s last panda bear. Instead the City of Chicago, ComEd and various Chicago business leaders launched two environmental projects, the Green Office Challenge and Earth Hour, at the OFS Brands showroom in the Merchandise Mart.
The Green Office Challenge encourages tenants and operators of high-rise office buildings to save energy, increase recycling and water efficiency and reduce paper consumption. OFS Brand’s office furniture showroom has improved its recycling program for office materials including paper, electronics, light bulbs and construction materials, which is diverting 748 tons of materials from landfills per year. As a result, the showroom has achieved LEED Gold Certification.
Earth Hour to be held on March 28 is a nationwide event in which lights are turned off for one hour to call attention to the fight against global climate change. In 2008 more than 2.8 million Chicago-area residents turned out their lights for Earth Hour, which resulted in a 7 percent reduction in electricity usage during that time. Represent!
According to Daley, more environmentally efficient office buildings are critical to helping Chicago reduce its impact on the planet’s changing climate.
Special note: No pandas were harmed during the writing of this blog.

Office furniture industry feeling some pain

Michael A. Dunlap & Associates have released the results of its quarterly MADA/OFI Trends Survey, designed to measure business activity of the office furniture industry and its suppliers. This survey was completed in October.
The October 2008 overall survey index is 50.54, the second lowest in more than four years. The highest recorded index was 59.72 in July 2005. Since the survey started in August 2004, the average is 56.18.
“I’m glad to see both these index values improve, but material costs are still impacting everyone, especially the small companies … Everyone is aware that raw materials costs are skyrocketing due to oil, steel and related commodity price jumps,” says Michael Dunlap.
“I think the industry is in a good position to absorb some downturn,” he said.
I’m glad he thinks so. Good barometers of any industry are the larger trade shows. For office furniture the big one is NeoCon. Attendance was slightly down in 2008. It will be interesting to see how a year of recession will affect the industry. I sure wouldn’t miss waiting in line at the Merchandise Mart for spot in a crammed elevator.