Once a month, we gather a list of six stories from the furniture and design world we think are worth reading. This month, we’re reading:

Office Redux: 42 Furnishings to Energize Your Workspace, InteriorDesign.net

Office furniture is more than a utility that allows your employees to accomplish their tasks. It brings colors and textures to the space in which all of you work. Visualizing furniture as an influential part of your office’s atmosphere can infuse your workspace with new vitality. Here are 42 furnishings that can get you started.
Lessons in office design from Robert Moses, Treehugger.com

Our choices in office furnishings can have a greater effect on productivity than we might expect. The ubiquitous horizontal surface on which we work can take many forms, all sufficient to hold up our computers and papers yet vastly different in how they encourage us to perform our duties. So what works best for you? We can find inspiration for our own offices in the way one well-known businessman, Robert Moses, leveraged his work surface to meet his goals.

In This Vision of a Healthier Workplace, Sitting Is Not Allowed, Entrepreneur.com

Recent studies on the effects of prolonged sedentary periods paint a worrisome picture. For this reason, standing desks and even treadmill desks have gained an ever-increasing foothold in workplaces. Would workplaces benefit from eliminating chairs entirely? An art exhibit in Amsterdam explores what that might look like. While it seems unlikely this is the office of the future, it does present an interesting alternative to more traditional chairs and work surfaces.

Measuring Performance: The Difference Between a Seat and a Chair, WorkDesign.com

When office managers discuss how many seats they can put into a space per square foot, they are often referring to physical chairs. As we diversify the ways we work, the term “seat” has come to mean more than just the chair. Planning office furniture purchases now means understanding how the company does its work.

Kuskoa Bi Chair Makes Bioplastics a Design Reality, ArchiExpo.comSpeaking of physical chairs, the planet-friendly aspects of creating seats has seen increasing awareness by furniture designers. Innovators have begun to take bioplastics seriously. These ecologically sound materials come entirely from renewable, plant-based resources, are biodegradable, and fully recyclable.

Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace., The Washington Post

We would be remiss if we did not point out one of the most hotly debated articles going around office design circles in recent days. Open office design has emerged as a popular trend, but do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? One writer makes the case for less openness, rather than more.

At Benhar Office Interiors, we like to keep our finger on the pulse of office furniture design trends and innovations. If you do as well, and you’ve seen an article you think we would enjoy, we want to hear from you! Send us a tweet @BenharOffice with the hashtag #WorkInProgress.

Tags: bioplastic furniture, flexible office design, future of office design, modern office design, modern office furnishings, standing office, sustainable office furniture, What's New, work in progress