Working from home
By PETER-PHILIPP SCHMITT
October 30, 2022 One in four people in Germany continues to work regularly or occasionally at home rather than in the office.
Designers and manufacturers have also reacted to this – with small, functional desks.
AERO D
In 2016, the Californian designer Lukas Scherrer, who actually comes from Zurich, designed the Aero shelf for the Italian brand Living Divani.
However, the boards are not made of wood, but of honeycombed reinforced aluminum, a technology from space travel.
They are lightweight yet stable.
Now his Shibuleru studio in San Francisco has expanded the collection with the Aero D desk, whose top is actually made of dark-stained chestnut wood and can be supplemented with shelving elements.
HARRI
Harri is also a whole collection, with tables, chairs, cupboards, showcases and even a bar trolley.
Peter Fehrentz has been working on this for many years.
In addition to a secretary with compartments and drawers, he has now also designed this desk for the Hamburg brand More by Bernhard Müller.
It has three spacious drawers, the frame is made of anthracite-colored powder-coated steel, the veneered panels in oak or walnut are either oiled and waxed or matt lacquered.
Fehrentz chose solid wood for the decorative strips.
BAGUETTE
Even though the Breton brothers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec have calmed down a bit: The two continue to design a lot of new products.
For their versatile table (for Magis) they used an unusual high-tech material for the top: Fenix.
They are acrylic resins that are hardened by an electron beam curing process.
The soft surface is very resistant, small scratches can be removed, and heat does not affect the material.
YUUTO
The Austrian designer trio EOOS has been in existence for a quarter of a century this year.
Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann and Harald Gründl, who named their studio after one of the four horses that pull the chariot of the sun god Helios in Ovid's "Metamorphoses", are known for their minimalist, almost poetic work.
The Yuuto console (for Walter Knoll) is also seemingly plain and simple, but has a cover made of high-quality saddle leather - so that no paper slips and no pen rolls away when writing.
PEGASUS
The small desk from 2014 is almost a classic.
It was designed by the Ippolito Fleitz Group (Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz) from Stuttgart and Tilla Goldberg, who was born in Düsseldorf.
Instead of a panel, the piece of furniture (for Classicon) has a hide leather surface that can be rolled up or folded down to reveal the compartments below.
There is enough space for paper and pencil, for the laptop including charging station and also the power supply.
In the evening, the day's work disappears again with just a few movements.
LIV
Liv is the Swedish word for "life", and that's exactly what the sculptural side table by Ola Giertz is supposed to be: a piece of furniture for all situations in life.
The wooden companion consists of three geometric shapes, a cylinder that gives stability, a rectangle with a rounded corner and a circle on top.
The designer from Helsingborg offers his work through the Swedish brand Blå Station in natural oak and ash wood - or in a variety of colors from yellow to orange and red to green or blue.
FLOATER
It started with a sofa.
This was developed by the French Pauline Deltour and her studio in Paris for the so-called Cor Lab, with which the family business run by Leo Lübke dealt with the new conditions in everyday office life.
The padded outer walls are particularly striking, making the desk a haven of peace and enabling concentrated work at home.
Deltour calls their design "a little oasis for work-life balance".
ANY DAY
A piece of wood resting on a metal frame – is that enough to qualify as furniture, such as a table?
Yes, says Frenchman Christophe Pillet.
However, he doesn't make it that easy for himself, he refines his collection with a few details.
And he attaches great importance to the proportions of his tables and consoles, which Flexform offers with a frame made of stainless steel and a veneer of Canaletto walnut.
The desk with its drawers is also available in different versions.
The top can be made of wood or marble.
TWAIN
Gordon Guillaumier, originally from Malta, also created a linear desk.
The slightly asymmetrically offset and rounded steel frame shimmers in bronze, the work surface is covered with leather.
There are also compartments and niches for storing documents, envelopes or pens, for example.
Guillaumier, who has had his own studio in Milan for 20 years, has long worked for the Italian brand Frag, for which he has designed a range of chairs, as well as the Hudson daybed.
BOND
Another design for the Cor Lab (see floater).
The idea for a series of side tables came to the Aust & Amelung studio, which is backed by Miriam Aust and Sebastian Amelung, when they looked into their own workshop, with lots of different mobile “furniture” that is used by everyone and does not belong to any fixed workplace.
This is how this laptop table (for Cor) was created, whose worktop is infinitely height-adjustable and, thanks to its wheels, can be pulled and pushed anywhere.
NUBO
What looks like a small folder is a wall secretary.
When closed, the work by the designer duo GamFratesi is only 14 centimeters deep, when opened it offers a work surface with cable outlet and holder for documents and devices such as tablets or smartphones.
Ligne Roset originally offered the design by the Danish Stine Gam and the Italian Enrico Fratesi in natural oak with light blue wool, but now the space-saving wall element is also available in dark oak with a black cover fabric.
OUTLINE
Kristina Dam's desk is best placed in the middle of the room.
Then the graphic lines of your work come into their own.
The credo of the Dane, who is a graphic designer by training and whose studio has been located not far from Copenhagen in Hvidovre since 2012, is "sculptural minimalism".
Your desk has a simple steel frame into which the solid oak tabletop and drawers slide.
BUREAU
A desk that can be easily folded: that was the idea of the Finnish designer Esa Vesmanen.
The work surface of his desk with walnut legs can also be pulled out.
In addition, he has equipped it with an LED light inside so that you can use it in the evening.
The Italian manufacturer Horm offers it in white, gray and red.
ARITA
A piece is missing from one corner of the table, and Luis Alberto Arrivillaga, who comes from Guatemala, has also relocated a leg to make his work more interesting.
His desk is also a console, which can be placed in a narrow hallway.
The top is either covered with a walnut veneer, made of glass or painted in a burgundy colour.
The manufacturer is the Frag family company, which was founded in 1921.
PETIT BURE AU EN FORME LIBRE
As early as 1938, Charlotte Perriand, who for a long time was only noticed because of her collaboration with Le Corbusier, began to design free-standing tables.
This is how this rounded desk without corners and edges was created in the 1950s.
The Parisian saw in him a small island on which one can work freely and unbound.
The Italian manufacturer Cassina has relaunched the piece of furniture made of natural Canaletto walnut with a satin finish or with a matt finish in its "Cassina i Maestri" collection with old masters - only slightly revised.
Photos: manufacturer
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