Looking in the offices of some Asian companies, you will feel that people are covered by rows of square black chairs. It looks like it’s even a little depressed. Only the jackets that occasionally ride on the back of the chair can make you recognize Who is that?" Peter Boeckel told Curiosity Daily.
Peter Boeckel is the Asia Pacific design manager for Steelcase, the US office furniture brand. Although he is based in Hong Kong, he spent most of the past year developing new products at its headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“Now designing any furniture for an office in Asia can no longer be just about performance. It should meet the dual needs of both function and experience: increase productivity in a limited space, high-density office; and at the same time, Recognition, more attention to people's emotional health, more choices, more sustainable." Boeckel pointed to the two seats to the more than a dozen media. They look smaller and more vivid than the usual ergonomic seats.
“The new program needs to increase the attention to each individual and visually control each person’s own space.”
The two seats, called "Series 1", were released in the US and India last year and will be available in the Chinese market in mid-January.
Compared to Steelcase's past mid- to high-end classic seating series, the new product emphasizes “more flexibility” and “more personalization”.
Steelcase conducted research on the Asia Pacific market in 2014. The rapidly growing workforce, increasing workstations, increasing efficiency, limited space, increasing density and tremendous pressure have all become potential design factors.
Specific to China, Steelcase mentioned in an “Engagement and the Global Workplace” report released in 2016 that the number of open offices in China is the fourth in the world, juxtaposed with the Netherlands, but the number of private offices is much lower than the world. Average. In addition, although China and India, Russia and other countries are changing their working methods, they are still relatively traditional. Mobile workers or nomadic work are becoming more common in European countries such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, and the proportion of these emerging economies is still very small.
Further reading: 2017 China Green Office Furniture 50 Best List!
Peter Boeckel believes that these findings suggest that the primary consideration when designing seats for the Asian market is how to increase efficiency in a relatively traditional, crowded open space.
Series 1 has changed the back of the chair to a more rounded and trapezoidal trapezoid, adding more adjustable parts. There are up to 12 options for the material and color of the seat cushion.
In addition to Series 1, from the second half of last year to the beginning of this year, Steelcase's two new products, Navi TeamIsland Working Island and Ology Lift Table, also featured diversity and personalization as key features.
The former is a desk ecosystem – the individual space is divided by an adjustable screen; the table legs below the location and the space above it can be used to store personal items; the connecting edge of the flip cover and the table can also be used as a device base. The latter is free to adjust various heights and is equipped with an antibacterial tabletop soft edging on the table.
These new features may be an attempt by established furniture companies to find a way out in the context of slowing global growth and fierce competition.
According to a recent data released by research firm Research and Markets, the annual growth rate of the global office furniture market between 2017 and 2021 is expected to slow down to 3.71%. Due to the reduction in government procurement and the shrinking of large business projects, Steelcase's competitor, American furniture brand Knoll, saw a net sales of 14.6% to $153 million in office furniture last year. The group's sales also fell 8.8% to 2.687. One hundred million U.S. dollars.
