For this year’s Orgatec fair, Vitra will be focusing on the increasing convergence of the office realm and public spaces, subsumed under the title ‘WORK’. The presentation showcases three examples of office scenarios featuring new and familiar Vitra products.
The ideal life plan of the current generation includes the priorities of maximum flexibility, minimal commitment to a physical location, and the desire for personal well-being. Work is done, but not necessarily at a given place or during specific hours. A generation is building its professional life around individual life plans, wireless connections and charging options. We see people working wherever they happen to be – in hotels, airports, cafés, at the beach, on the train from A to B. They share jobs, workspaces, even their homes. These developments are increasingly turning public space into a productive workspace.
Yet the office will not disappear. Why is that? Because the need for direct, real-world exchanges and interactions remains unabated – and is even on the rise with the growth of virtual applications. Some of the most successful companies of our time construct a campus, a home for their staff to cultivate the tradition of coming together in a single place. Many of these office projects are of impressive architectural quality, built to last by confident corporations. For employees, these sites are like miniature cities with a wide range of goods, services and facilities in the immediate vicinity of the workplace. The interiors play a crucial role in manifesting the corporate identity, signaling attitudes and values to clients, partners and – most importantly – the company’s own workforce.
Other businesses are adapting to the noncommittal, unpredictable nature of our time. In order to react to rapid changes in their markets, they are forming agile organisational structures that constantly evolve. They do not create permanent, definitively equipped work environments, but keep the infrastructure light, mobile, and ready to adapt and move to a new location at any moment. They rent furniture and office space instead of owning or building.
For decades Vitra has developed solutions for the office world, whether for working on the move, in campus settings or in constantly changing environments. And Vitra continues to make products that address the challenges of the present era, but will endure and still be appreciated by the next generation.
The overall concept of ‘WORK’ is entrusted to the American designer Jonathan Olivares and the Swedish architect Pernilla Ohrstedt. Sevil Peach, Konstantin Grcic, and Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have created three different work environments with new and established Vitra products.
Vitra has selected design, architecture and technology firms to contribute to ‘WORK’. Featured partners include: Aircharge, Artek, Bulthaup, Forbo, Gantner, Gerriets, IdeaPaint, Kvadrat Soft Cells, Laufen, Locatee, Naava, Panasonic, Piaggo Fast Forward, Rieder, Studiotools.io, Technogym, Thingdust, Wästberg.
Orgatec 2018, 23 to 27 October, Cologne