A true point of attraction for office furniture and solutions, the trade fair Orgatec offered another year of top-notch products and reflection. Vitra organized its exhibition Work, inviting designers such as Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, Konstantin Grcic, and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to participate. Work filled an entire exhibition hall and showcased a representation of today’s working world through a range of new products, spatial elements and furnishing concepts.
Product-hunting during trade fairs can feel like walking down “endless halls of terrors” [Osgerby to ArchiExpo], which is one of the reasons why we need spaces created by selected designers to provide a moment of calm, reflection and interaction. Along with its invited designer team, Vitra turned hall 5.2 into a proper exhibition, a collage of office typologies, where visitors could visualize what the workplace should be today.
An Airstream coffee truck gleaming to the right and a sea of gray-and-black-clad people murmuring, 10 meters further into Vitra’s “exhibition in an exhibition,” a café offered further comestibles and tables from which to consume them, including Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s circle benches installation.
The circle bench installation at Orgatec by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec https://t.co/19z9f2aWrU #Vitra #Orgatec2016 pic.twitter.com/HEAXBgsTfo
— Vitra (@vitra) 27 octobre 2016
An office is no longer a place of production, but a connection.
“With new technologies allowing us to work anywhere at any time, the end of the office has been predicted time and again. Yet the office still has not disappeared. Why is that?” asks Vitra CEO Nina Fehlbaum. “Because the need for direct, real-world exchanges and interactions remains unabated—and is even on the rise with the growth of virtual applications.”
In addition to new and established Vitra products, it featured those from selected Vitra partners including Ruckstuhl, Wästberg, Bulthaup, Dinesen, Artek and others.
Bulthaup, the custom kitchen firm, created a watering-hole concept where employees can linger around a central water source and chat. Splashes of savanna grass and blond, heavily grained wood make rehydrating feel like an exotic adventure. Art Aqua had enough wall garden concepts to imagine even the drabbest council office as a rival to the Hanging Gardens.
“The office of today ought to support project work, spontaneous collaboration or mobile working, and be an open space for innovation and creativity,” said Vitra Germany CEO Rudolf Pütz. Pieces from Vitra’s home furnishing line, reflecting the larger trend in office furniture for darker, warmer wood with visible grain and highly tactile textiles like velvet and open weave twill in rich colors. It feels like home and for good reason. “In a time of strong disruption,” said Pütz, “the working environment increasingly becomes a strategic asset for the companies.”
Along the right side of the exhibition hall, there is a multitude of samples from its new office chair lines: Osgerby’s Pacific, Antonio Citterio’s ID Soft L and Alberto Meda’s AM. Without exception, men wandered over, feigned interest in the armrests and after checking that no colleagues were watching, gleefully bottomed-out the seat.
“This is a performance in here,” said Pernilla Ohrstedt in the exhibition presentation video for Vitra. Work was created in collaboration with architecture studio Pernilla Ohrstedt and the Los Angeles designer Jonathan Olivares.
Catch SMOW’s review of Vitra’s exhibition here.
Courtesy of Orgatec
