Orgatec 2014 Highlights

Orgatec 2014, hosted every two years in Cologne, Germany, is the largest tradeshow of office & object and this year’s title was: Modern Working Environments

Zenith was there and so were our partners: The Senator Group, Buzzispace, Aichi and Enea. The workplace is certainly evolving to meet the demands of a changing workforce and Orgatec is a great platform to showcase upcoming design trends.

This year there was a strong focus on the natural environment, bringing the outside in with plant walls, natural wood finishes and a lovely harmonious palette of colours of dark tonal value and the odd pop of something bright.

There were a sea of pods : the return of the office cubical, but gratefully many organic and welcoming shapes and sizes and of course without the expectation of having to sit in one for a full 8 hours, instead the ‘pod’ is for privacy when you need to escape the distractions of the open office and have to focus on the task at hand.

The open office is not going away but a focus on better acoustics were evident in a variety of products that help absorb and dampen sound

The trend toward more ‘residential’ furniture in the office was big this year and exhibitors like Fritz Hansen, exhibited for the first time at Orgatec

Families of product providing great range for multi-use, in office and education was also a stand out.  The100% recycled Tipo chair now comes with 4 leg, 4 leg and castors, with optional tablet and folding.  The Ad-Lib family of chairs designed by PearsonLloyd now has a high back Work Chair with tablet arm that swivels around the back for both right and left handed people.  Enea released the new high back Lottus chair to add to their extensive family of chairs.