Space Inside Space

Design Studio

Project ReportSpring 2015

4 5

INTRODUCTION

The project was created as cooperation with the Estonian upholstery company Borg. Borg

started furniture production in year 2004. Their mission is to offer high-quality and competitive-

ly priced special furniture and their own pro-duction to companies and private people. The aim of the project was to propose an innovative

idea that would compliment the company’s product portfolio, to define a new direction for the company and the reasoning behind that.

Sven SõrmusDesigner

Supervisor, Estonian Academy of Arts

Janno NõuDesigner

Supervisor, Tallinn University of Technology

Martin PärnDesigner

Head of D&E, Estonian Academy of Arts

TEAMTUTORS

6 7

8 9

CONTENTS

Introduction 5

1. Research

2. Borg OÜ

3. Concept Development

4. “Mine metsa”

Puu

Mägi

Mets

A Brief History of the Office

The Future of the Office

Market Research

Product Portfolio

Team

5. Future Developments

710141618

20

2634

67

22

394859

The methodology used for the research was desk research, questionnaires, interviews and observations.

We started the project with desk research to find out the answers to the following questions:

• What are the major trends in furniture nowa-days?

• What are the major tendances in the mar-kets?

• What are the major changes in people’s lifestyles nowadays?

We also planned to map out the different areas of furniture design that has opportunities for our project and research new materials and pro-duction methods for ideas and inspiration. We

created a mindmap (Figure, page 9) to get an overview of the existing trends.

We discussed the changes in people’s life-styles, to name a few:

• people are watching less TV and spending more time in computers

• reading a book is often replaced with a Kin-dle or an iPad

• there is increasing demand for charging the various devices

• there are more people working at home• people are more densely populated• people are consuming more things which

means the need for compact storage• people don’t want to wait in queues in

banks, government buildings, etc.

1. RESEARCH

10 11

Image. Coworking in TUT lounge areaImage. Coworking in D&E StudioImage. Coworking space in Rävala street, Tallinn

TRENDS IN FURNITURE DESIGN

Compact furniture

Eco-friendly solutions

TechnologyInteractive furniture

Coziness as a reactionto the fuss of the outside world

AestheticsAcoustic solutions

Playful furniture

Customizablesolutions

Round Swing Table

ROOM collections by ErikOlovsson & Kyuhyung Cho

Individuality

Shapeshifting

Movement

Cozy aestheticsPillows

Self-cleaning fabrics

Integration ofdevice chargers, etc.

LED

WoodDIY trend

Cork

Non-petrol based fibres

Anti-allergenicmaterials

Firewood chair

Modular solutions

Multi-functionalityBookcase hides furniture

Uncluttered space

Warm colours

Cuddly fabricsWoodWool

Ethnic

Light-toned woodElegant simplicity

Scandinavian

Minimalism

12 13

the time a person spends on a task at home and what are the influencers. Here we can see that a major area of issues is the amount of distractions that arise almost every step of the way. These can be caused by outside factors but also the person working himself. Basic needs like having to use the toilet or grab a meal are distracting factors that tangle with the focus on the working process.

Next, we decided to make observational re-search, observing people working in co-work-ing offices. We made a trip to the rooms of Mektory. Unfortunately there were very few people there at the time. We are also observing the people working in our studio and interview-

We found that because the furniture/uphol-stery business is such a major area, we should narrow it down and focus on something more specific. We chose the area of office furniture because there is where we thought the biggest opportunities for Borg might be. Therefore our research continued in the direction of analysing the changes in the working culture and office life.

We created questionnaires for people working at home or in a coworking office and created a map that we later named ‘topic map’ which maps out the emotional qualities that influence the person working at home. The aim was to find out how we could improve the quality of

ing everyone we know who have experience with teleworking. We discovered that TUT’s Marketing Management lecturer Rene Arvola is also very familiar with the teleworking subject. It’s one of his main areas of research. Therefore we wrote him and he gave us some information and links to his research.

We also visited Coworking Space Tallinn in Rävala street. There were only 3 rooms ar-ranged in a co-working office style. We made our own observation and also talked with one of the office workers. Unfortunately there were few people, some of workers were working together, some of them separately and in the third room they had a meeting, like a teamwork

process. We found out that there might be a need for something that would help a person be excluded and keep focused, while allowing an easy change for group work. We created a layout plan, where we clearly demonstrated the problems surrounding co-working offices. We tried to visualize the whole office space: rooms, kitchen, restroom, wardrobe - and analyzed what we could improve with the help of Borg.

EMOTIONAL QUALITYPhysical

Communication

Privacy

Furniture

Teleworking

Ergonomics

Multifunctional room

Physical distancebetween work and

home

Separate room

Health conditionSitting too much

Room divider

Storage

Seating

Table

Intellectual

DistractionsPrivacy You

Others

Entertainment

Bodily needs

Toilet

Music

Internet

BooksPeople

Other noise

Pets

Cats

Dogs Other

Walk

PlayEat

Aesthetic

Visual

Form

Color Aesthetics

Color psychology

Light

Artificial

Lamp

Candle

Natural

DaylightSmelling

Air

Quality

Window

Winter/cold

City smog/dust

From inside

From outside

ToiletFoodPerfume Materials

Nature

Neighbours

Ventilation

Form

Touching

Temperature

Air

Surface

Texture

Surface

Hardness/softness

Sound

AcousticsHearing

NoiseOutside

People

Inside

Weather

Street noise

People

Music

Animals

Machines

Family members

Neighbours

Partners

Food

TV

Taylorism - American engineer Frederick Tay-lor was obsessed with efficiency and oversight and is credited as one of the first people to ac-tually design an office space. Taylor crowded workers together in a completely open envi-ronment while bosses looked on from private offices, much like on a factory floor.

Bürolandschaft - The German “office land-scape” brought the socialist values of 1950s Europe to the workplace: Management was no longer cosseted in executive suites. Local arrangements might vary by function—side-by-side workstations for clerks or pinwheel

arrangements for designers, to make chatting easier—but the layout stayed undivided.

Action office - Bürolandschaft inspired Her-man Miller to create a product based on the new European workplace philosophy. Action-was the first modular business furniture system, with low dividers and flexible work surfaces. It’s still in production today and widely used. In fact, you probably know Action by its generic, more sinister name: cubicle.

Cube farm - It’s the cubicle concept taken to the extreme. As the ranks of middle managers

swelled, a new class of employee was created: too important for a mere desk but too junior for a window seat. Facilities managers accommo-dated them in the cheapest way possible, with modular walls. The sea of cubicles was born.

Virtual office - Ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day’s LA headquarters was a Frank Gehry master-piece. But the interior, dreamed up by the company’s CEO, was a fiasco. The virtual office had no personal desks; you grabbed a laptop in the morning and scrambled to claim a seat. Productivity nose-dived, and the firm quickly became a laughingstock.

Neworking - During the past decade, furniture designers have tried to part the sea of cubi-cles and encourage sociability—without going nuts. Knoll, for example, created systems with movable, semi-enclosed pods and connected desks whose shape separates work areas in lieu of dividers. Most recently, Vitra unveiled furniture in which privacy is suggested if not realized. Its large tables have low dividers that cordon off personal space but won’t guard personal calls.

1960 1980 2005

19941968 20001904Taylorism

Bürolandschaft

Action office

Cube farm

Virtual office Networking

First co-workingoffice opened

A Brief History of the Office

14 15

16 17

Offices are not what they used to be - and that’s largely a good thing. New technology as well as changing attitudes and working prac-

tices have led some (especially hip new media and tech companies) to go all out with the de-sign of their offices, installing slides, play areas

and even indoor farms.

A great example of this is the Google offices. No two offices are the same, though visitors to any office can expect to find a few common features: murals and decorations expressing

local personality; Googlers sharing cubes, yurts and “huddles”; video games, pool tables and

pianos; cafes and “microkitchens” stocked with healthy food; and good old fashioned white-

boards for spur-of-the-moment brainstorming.

The Future of the Office

Google Tel Aviv campusGoogle Dublin campus

Google Dublin campus

18 19

Market Research

In office interior design, acoustic panels and partitions are the focus with many product

designers. Private pods and informal meeting spaces are needed The trend of installing wall panels has increasingly gained popularity as a great sound proofing treatment. In this, the decorative wall panels are installed over the

walls and ceilings of a room. These wall panels help a lot to reduce the sound reverberation by simply controlling the exterior noise while

absorbing the interior high pitch sound waves. Thus, they provide the high wuality sound out-puts that are extremely good, clear and crisp

with no echo.

20 21

2. BORG OÜ

“We are glad to deliver you furniture which is de-signed to work in harmony with the environment. Good design is the power to generate innovative

ideas which create real transformation. Continuous investment into production and product develop-ment helps to ensure that products are designed

according to customer needs.”

- Mart Jõhvikas, President and CEO of Borg OÜ

Borg OÜ is an Estonian furniture manufactur-ing and development company that launched in year 2004 in Tallinn, Estonia. Their furniture salon is situated in Liivalaia 40 with the compa-nies Tank, Piel and Sunorek. Borg’s mission is to offer high-quality made-to-order furniture with competitive pricing for com-panies and private customers. Most of Borg’s production is made-to-order (around 95%). These products include anything from lounge suites and footrests to stools and armchairs. Borg’s clientelle includes hotels (Swissôtel, Sokos Hotel Viru), banks (SEB, Swedbank),

restaurants (Restaurant Ö, SteakHouse), office buildings (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and many other public spaces (Tallinn Airport, VolksWa-gen, KUMU, etc.)

Recently Borg launched several products with fascinating acoustic solutions. One of these products is the new acoustic HAUS (image above), line of furniture that allows for a good working environment, and also the opportunity to be separated. At the same time it’s kind of a phone speaker, where you can have your private space for important conversations.

Model “Haus”

22 23

Product Portfolio

Borg’s product portfolio encompasses well designed artefacts that make living more com-fortable and beautiful. They are manufacturing

soft funiture - chairs, decorative chairs and armchairs; sofas, beds and bedends. But also some wooden furniture (tables, shelves, etc.). Borg has seen that the new ‘must have’ in the offices and public spaces at the moment are acoustic furniture and accessories so they have also started to design acoustic furni-

ture (“Custo”, “CC”, “Hallo”, page 26-27). Our recommended improvement for their product portfolio would be a set of ‘parasite’ products, accessories that could be easily installed and

put anywhere.

Model “Cona”

Model “Enter”

Model “Rapide”

24 25

Bedend

Model “Custo”

Model “CC”

Model “Hallo”

3. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

We mapped out the areas that emerged during our research where we could design something useful.The concept we created tackles most of them (marked with green above).

We started the sketching process. Here are all reasons, why we decided to develop our project in this direction. We visited two creative studios for our research. First one was Identity where we met up with Ionel Lehari and asked for his feedback and also feedback from some of their employees. Firstly, he invited two peo-ple from their design team. We explained to them our ideas and showed the sketches and asked them to be brutally honest in their feed-

• They would likely use the larger mountain screens.

• They thought that the christmas tree would be too much for some offices. It’s too literal and childish and many people wouldn’t go there.

• It’s good that it’s such a universal idea and scalable.

Then, two people from the financial side were brought in and we had the same conversation.

Their thoughts:• “The products would have fit in nicely in my

old office in a factory building”• Mountain shades - why not, maybe• Christmas tree - it’s so hard to find a private

place to talk on the phone in our office so it would be very necessary

• ‘Mine metsa’ - it’s not very practical. I wouldn’t use it. Well, maybe on friday nigth after the work is done. I would like some space around my head, I like the tree more.

• Grass - good for creatives, not for us.• Table - strange and different. The position

wouldn’t be good (too bent forward). It’s de-finately not something you would have your first meeting with a person in.

PRIVACY

FOCUSING

STORAGE

ORGANISATION

A QUIET PLACE TO USE THE PHONE/SKYPE

FLEXIBILITY OF WORKSPACE

AUDIO/VISUAL DISTRACTIONS

LACK OF SPACE

• They really liked the cord organiser on the table and they would definately use this one.

The second office we visited was Age McCann. The comments we got there:• Very cool. Ready made things that can be

installed anywhere.• They liked the larger mountains. They

thought the smaller ones would go more in bank offices.

• They often have teams and teamwork and rarely any meeting tables available so they really like the table.

• They liked the ‘mine metsa’ as well. They also have a big problem of not finding a place to talk on the phone so sometimes they have to use the restroom for phone calls. But grass would probably take up a lot of space.

• Everyone thougth the clothes hanger was okay and would go nicely with the rest of the products, but no strong feelings.

The main idea of concept is to create space in space for offices, emotional value and emo-tional quality for employes. So we focused on

26 27

back.

Here’s what they thought:• The overall feedback was positive. There

was laughter at some of the concepts but in a positive way.

• They liked the nature theme because every-body can adapt to it. It made them feel safe.

• They thought that they probably wouldn’t use the small christmas trees as they would likely need the cover to be behind their back so others wouldn’t see their work, not in front of the computer. They have really used to working head-to-head with the other designers.

nature theme because everybody can adapt to it. It made people feel safe. Workspace isn’t flexible enough to quickly adapt to the needs of the workers. Because we, as much as possible tried to made emotionally comfortable accesso-ries for workspace.

The core of the concept was to create poeti-cal, emotional, playful shapes for offices and also reduce acoustic and visual distractions.

28 29

Emotions play such a big role in our lives. So we tried to focus on color, shape and softness. This ready made things that can be installed anywhere, and create a comfortable environ-ment for employees where they can see that they are spending whole day in office which gives them opportunity to arrange things in this way in which they prefer and feel comfortable.

30 31

32 33

34 35

4. “MINE METSA”

“Mine metsa” (‘Go to the forest’) is our pro-posed new design platform for Borg. The

concept encompasses various acoustic office accessories, so called parasite products that can be easily installed into any home or cor-porate office, university or other place where

efficient work style is needed.

Create new defined spaces in-side bigger spaces easily.

The base for a productive workplace.

Focus. In order to get your work done as efficiently as possible you need to be able to focus. You have an aim and we want to help you reach it. But it takes more than just a qui-et box without distractions. We know what it

takes to create a motivating work environment. “Mine metsa” creates a poetical and playful,

yet functional approach to focusing on what’s important. Yet tested and functional, it’s more than just a noise-absorbing product line. The products immediately become jewels in the public spaces and office interior designs.

Foreclosure. What “mine metsa” really does, is it creates new spaces inside bigger spaces.

The tested noise-absorbing structure fights acoustic distractions while well thought-through product measurements protect you from visu-al distratcions. The products are designed to dampen the noise level and screen off the of-

fice landscape. There are thousands of ways to combine the products, creating meeting areas, workstations, phone booths and what ever else

your imagination allows.

Flexibilty. “Mine metsa” sound-absorbing accessories help to organize the spaces in-

side bigger spaces better. These ready-made artefacts can be installed anywhere, creating

a customized, comfortable environment for the employees. People spend a lot of their time at work, so they should have to option to adjust

their working space for maximum comfort and efficiency. The products are designed in an

economically-concious way so that the packag-ing and shipping is very compact.

36 37

To stand out

To create meaningful designs

To excel

36 37

38 39

METS

38 39

40 41

METS (“forest”) is a mountable acoustic ceil-ing panel system. The panels have 13 soft

hanging strands which are fixed to the panel with velcro. That makes the strands easily re-movable and washable. The panels are made of sound-absorbing materials, which help to

reduce the echo in large office buildings. The panels can be arranged in various patterns, which will give customers the opportunity to

create their own dividers or spaces inside big-ger spaces. METS will be available in various

lengths, suitable for any room height. The pan-els are standard dropped ceiling panel size

(60x60 cm).

The functions include echo reduction, a quiet space to make phone calls and acoustic and

visual room dividing.

42 43

44 45

46 47

140 mm 600 mm

600

mm

Endless possibilities in combining, creating your own spaces and separators.

100-

4000

mm

PUU

48 49

50 51

PUU (‘tree’) is an acoustic space divider. It consist of three parts which can be layed on top of each other, creating a spruce-tree-like artefact. It’s made of thick felt which is rein-forced with sound-absorbing materials. The triangular parts can be layed on top of each

other vertically or manipulated to create wind-blown playful shapes. The triangles come with a wooden construction which helps the tree to stand tall and sturdy. The ready-made height of the tree is 150 cm. The parts are designed in a way so that the shipping is economical

and safe, as the parts can be pocketed inside each other.

PUU is a great way to separate working sta-tions, it’s easy to move and will quickly create new spaces inside bigger spaces where em-ployees can focus on their working process.

52 53

54 55

550 mm

800 mm

1000 mm400 mm

400

mm

910

mm

56 57

MAGI

58 59

60 61

MAGI (‘mountain’) is an acoustic table screen. It is a flexible workspace divider which con-

sists of five panels that allow the screen to take the shape required. It is easily foldable and storable. It’s gives people the opportunity to

save space and create their own working area, without visual distractions, which adds emo-

tional quality to the working process.

The length of MAGI is 110 cm and the average height 45 cm. It is made of thick felt fabric,

insulated with sound-absorbing materials. The velcro triangles in each end of MAGI enable to create longer mountain ranges for group work

or other use cases.

62 63

64 65

110 mm

45 m

m

66 67

5. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

The products themselves are not yet ready to be marketed. What has been created during this project is a design platform for Borg’s future products. This is in a conceptual stage and future developments are needed. In this chapter we will propose a few ways of continu-ing with the product development.

Firstly, we have worked out manufacturing pro-cesses for the three products which we chose to prototype. These are not ideal, though. The manufacturig process could be made more efficient and increase the product quality.

Secondly, for prototyping cheap, available

material were used. We suggest a thorough market research for available similar materials that would have good acoustic properties, as well as soft, natural feel.

Lastly, before launching the product line, we recommend proper acoustic testing to get precise data as we believe this would give the company the edge to succeed in the vast market.

We hope that Borg will see the same potential in the products that we do and that proper R&D and marketing will pay off in profit.

68 69