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The days of clock-watching employees buried behind cubicles, sitting at desks cluttered with a tangled mess of cables and wires, are long gone. Wireless technology has freed office workers from their desks, and has resulted in more open office spaces that encourage collaboration.
A focus on sustainability, meanwhile, has pushed this technology to the forefront, paving the way for innovation in design and flexibility in working conditions.
“The difference between office furnishings and office technology has almost completely disappeared,” noted Jill Gordon-Keep, business development manager of furniture and services supplier, Buro 45.
“A long time ago technology was something that you’d put on the furniture, like a computer and a fax machine, with all the cables, but now the desks themselves are becoming more technologically advanced,” she continued.
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The company’s Bordonabe range of office desks, which incorporates cables into the desk structure, is “industry standard for a product of this level and quality”, she continued. “All the cables and electrical mechanisms are actually housed under the work surface.
“It’s a simple system with very subtle, easy-access sliding cupboards, which has custom sockets depending on the needs of the individual – you just don’t have any wires out at all.”
Wire free
Wire management solutions have also extended beyond desks and computers, and currently take advantage of wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and wi-fi to keep offices free from the tangled mess of cables. European office supplier Bene incorporates a wide range of technologies into its furniture. Integrated wide-angle projectors, for example, eliminate the need to fix machines from the ceiling, or to place them on a desk where they can inadvertently be knocked.
Likewise, LCD monitors sealed into a desk allow the user to electronically raise the screen when it is needed, and lower it back into the desk when it is not. “We cannot have a completely wireless office yet,” said Ahmed Kandil, Bene’s managing director for the Middle East and Australia, “but having these different types of connections allows designers and the office furniture industry to minimise the need for bulky wires.”
When the wireless office does finally come into existence, it will be in no small part due to wireless electricity. Siddharth Peters, managing director of Dubai-based office furnishings manufacturer, The Total Office, believes that wireless electricity is not for the future, but the present.
“We’ve been dealing with wireless internet, data, voice, you name it, and we’ve had a lot of clients joke with us, asking: ‘What’s next, wireless electricity?’ Well, we are already there.
“The technology itself is not new, but the application is,” he continued. “Wireless electricity works through a Powermat, a platform which sits flush on a worktop, and through its corresponding communication kits, can charge iPhones and iPads, Blackberries, cameras, laptops and even desktop lamps.
“We’re demonstrating this to all our existing clients and we believe that in two years at least 20% of all larger companies will have this within their workspace, especially in collaboration areas, where people want to have a quick discussion but don’t want to bring all their wires with them.”
In time, wireless electricity will also influence the nature and design of shared workspaces and meeting rooms. Desktop-based conferencing, for example, is on the rise, taking away the need for the large and imposing video-conferencing rooms of old. Heidi Demunyck, sales manager for Summertown Interiors, explained that more and more people “are requesting a desktop conferencing connection for their computers, so a lot of the time now meetings are happening in smaller interview rooms or multi-functional rooms”.
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