Office Furniture: Expensive, Weird, Ergonomic and Functional
Is there such a thing as office furniture porn? Food porn is a thing (safe for work, non-sexual Wikipedia link). People flick through dozens of pictures of beautifully-presented meals, but oddly enough, there are no recipes, cooking, or eating. They just look at food. It's never been my thing, but it has a Wikipedia page, so it must be pretty popular.
So yes, office furniture porn should be a thing. Odd and functional furniture is far more interesting than a stuffed pepper. Here are a few of the most intriguing office furniture pieces I've stumbled upon:
Stir Kinetic Desk
It's a desk, with a touch screen, that can adjust back-and-forth between sitting and standing positions. The desk tracks how long you've been standing, the calories you've expended, and will even "remind" you to stand up every once in a while. Plus, it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cable management.
How much? According to VentureBeat, $4,000, but there will only be a limited run of 50 to start, with possibly more to follow if the desk is in demand.
Softwall
Cubicles remind me too much of everyone's favorite movie, "Office Space." If you're going for that modern, open floorplan, start-up vibe, but still need to separate space, these Softwalls are pretty nifty. The paper-based, honeycombed structured, room dividers arrive compressed to less than 50mm (about 2 inches), but they expand to up to 4.5 meters (about 14.75 feet). They apparently also provide pretty decent sound dampening.
The price tag? Depending on height, they run between $1,900 and $3,200.
Locus Workstation
This looks painful. It's like some sort of semi-stool, with a standing desk in front of you. But it also looks insanely cool, and is allegedly ergonomic.
As for cost, well, that depends on your accessories. Desk? $1,290. Locus seat? $690. LED lamp? $175. You get the point.
Realistic Options
Alright, so you don't have thousands of dollars to spend on hilarious-looking futuristic furniture. Your best investment, function-wise, is probably an ergonomic office chair, which will help your posture, save your back, and make those twelve-hour days slightly less deleterious to your health.
Lifehacker polled their readers on their favorite chairs, and the results varied from a $199 IKEA chair to a $1,200 chair that I'm sitting in now (thanks FindLaw!). As for the exercise ball as a chair fad, we tried it, and came away unimpressed.
Got some good furniture? Let us know on LinkedIn.
Related Resources:
- Treadmill Desks: Healthy or Hype For Sedentary Lawyers? (FindLaw's Greedy Associates Blog)
- Standing Desks are Good for Productivity. And Billing Hours Nonstop. (FindLaw's Greedy Associates Blog)
- Lawyers: Stop Sitting, Start Raising the Roof? (FindLaw's Greedy Associates Blog)