office in a metal trunk

This close-away office is an interesting product. It appears to be made of painted sheet metal, and allows you to close up your work by shutting the two halves like a suit-case on end. Then it can be wheeled away on the castors on the bottom.

A chair - I can not bear to call it a task chair - nests inside, and includes some storage in the base. They are channeling Joe Colombo's Boby rolling storage here.

I could see this being good for a home office, but also for a hoteling situation in an open loft like office space. Suppose a co-working space offered these as part of their different plans. You would rent your office case, and on days you were in the office roll it out into the open office space and set yourself up for your days work.

via materialicious

and ergonomicofficefurnitures.com

shorts to work + productivity?

An article appearing in the Minneapolis Star Ledger asks the question whether comfortable dress yields greater worker productivity. Linked by @GenslerOnWork via Twitter

ingmar bergman's study

Looks like a sweet home office to me. A nice simple wood desk, an eames lounge for reading, and a nice window with good light.

Spotted on Flickr, there is a nice slide show at the source link - well worth following.

gunlocke silea

A new office desking system by Gunlocke was an award winner at this years NeoCon trade show in Chicago. Interesting that Gunlocke traditionally a wood casework company is using glass, aluminum, and solid surfaces here. Makes for a much fresher look and I like when they mix the materials.

Gunlocke Silea

why you can't work at work

Thoughts about the workplace, why it is not made for work - its made for interruptions. Jason Fried, cofounder of 37signals, publisher of Basecamp and other work enabling software and services.

With its constant commotion, unnecessary meetings, and infuriating wastes of time, the modern workplace optimizes interruptions and makes us all work longer, less focused hours. Jason Fried explains how we can change all of this.

Posted at bigthink.com

one shelley street, an activity based workplace

One Shelly Street is a work place for investment consultant Macquarie Group in Sydney Australia completed last year. The building was designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects, and the collaborative work platform of Activity Based Working implemented by Dutch consultant Veldhoen & Co.

As the name suggests the work space is organized by spaces designed to support specific activities. There are library like areas with shared tables and desks, small meeting nooks, cafe like table groupings, and traditional conference rooms, all organized around an open atrium.

This loosely structured physical workplace is supported by work practices that facilitate it. For instance incoming paper mail is scanned and distributed to employees electronically. This eliminates one source of paperwork that would gather in files that would otherwise anchor a worker to a physical location. All of the work practices of the organization have been examined and modified in this manner to support the flexibility of the workplace. Workers are able to change their work setting as it suits them and the tasks they are doing. It is in the end an effort to enable the workers to take more charge of their environment and ultimately their work.

We want to learn more about the principles that have been implemented here because there is a direct relationship between workplace design, and work culture in this example. This is really the type of thing we want to explore on workalicious.

Many more photos of One Shelley Street on Contemporist

mobile cart and stool

This is an interesting pair of storage carts, that also can serve as a make-shift stool and desk. The appear to be made of bent sheet metal in the tradition of economical steel office furniture. I like the way they mimic each other's form while serving different functions.

via Living With White