Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
Whistle while you work, it will drive everyone else crazy.
Sure, it’s an old joke, but distracting, unwanted noise is an increasing problem for employees in modern open-concept offices. The design trend is to remove acoustic tiles from ceilings and rip out carpeting and dividing walls that traditionally dampened the sound of a busy office.
After taking down walls to create open offices and foster lots of interaction and collaboration, some companies are finding they’ve done the job too well. All of this social engineering has created endless distractions that draw employees’ eyes away from their own screens.
Visual noise, the activity or movement around the edges of an employee’s field of vision, can erode concentration and disrupt analytical thinking or creativity, research shows. While employers have long tried to quiet disruptive sounds in open workspaces, some are now combating visual noise too. The answer could be as low-tech as strategically placed plants or more drab wall colors.
MUT design’s product for sancal is a decorative but functional design piece which works as an acoustic panel. The five basic shapes can be combined in any way by the customer and up to three panels can be attached to the same base. Additionally, the beetles’ stands are made of oak and can be tinted in a range of colors. Considering the diversity of textiles, colors and shapes, the design offers a boundless amount of combinations — simulating the biodiversity of beetles in nature.
When it comes to working in an office, hell really can be other people. Many staff can have enormous difficulties coming to terms with the sounds that form the backdrop to their working day, especially if they work in open plan areas. The problem of noise at work is particularly acute right now because most UK employees now work in open plan offices and at workstations that are on average about 20 percent smaller than they were ten years or so ago. Yet, on the face of it, the business case for working in open plan offices is pretty clear cut. Not only is it more conducive to communication and less bound by ideas of that great contemporary no-no that we call ‘status’, open plan workstations not only take up around half the space of cellular offices, the costs of fitting out a cellular office are around 25 per cent higher than an equivalent open plan space. It’s no surprise that the open plan is the default model for most workplaces in many countries.
Anyone who has worked in an office can relate to the many distractions fellow colleagues can produce. From loud conversations to pungent wafts of lunch foods, coworkers are often real roadblocks to productivity (you might even be experiencing it at your desk right now). Indeed, a study from researchers at the University of Sydney found that office noise was cited as the most frustrating aspect of the work environment by about 50 percent of employees in open offices. What's more, Oxford Economics—an independent global advisory firm—found that 53 percent of office employees complain that workplace noise reduces their satisfaction and productivity.
Submaterial has seriously elevated the sound dampening game in recent years and their latest Acoustic Surfaces Collection is another brilliant step. Their wall systems feature a high-performance, thermally-formed acoustic substrate hidden beneath the thick layer of commercial grade wool felt, which lends itself to some serious sound-softening. But the company doesn’t stop there – instead, they bring a decorative element to the surface that results in really cool geometric wall patterns that disguise the original (acoustic) reason it’s there. From small walls to large installations, the wall surfaces are customizable with over 60 different colors to choose from.
Everyone involved, even remotely, in the world of the workplace can see that the pendulum has swung through the office. It has swept through, taking panel systems with it. In many places we are left with rows of workstations or benches. Employees are frequently elbow-to-elbow and nose-to-nose.
Read the comment sections on any article that discusses this trend and you would think that employees are ready to jump out the window to escape the sinister, dark intentions of their employers. “How can you value me so little?” “They are just trying to save money by cramming me into this awful environment.” “As soon as I find another job, I am out of here!”
