-By Danine Alati

It's unnatural to stick human beings in 6-ft. cubes for eight hours a day—and to expect them to constantly turn out productive work in such environs is outright absurd. We've been hearing that the corporate landscape is moving away from the Dilbert scenario for the past 10 years or so, but it's been a slow evolution. The best of today's furniture systems provide user flexibility, address ergonomic concerns, offer interesting aesthetics, accommodate technology, and consider environmental sustainability.

Environmental concerns have overwhelmingly affected all facets of product design. As more corporations strive to tread lightly on the earth and even go so far as attain LEED certification, all the major manufacturers are focusing on creating appropriate product. Using fewer materials in furniture systems and ones that do not off-gas are practically givens, but individual manufacturers also have developed their own revolutionary solutions to designing green.

For example, The HON Company's patent-pending Nature Core fiberboard imbedded in its Initiate panel systems meets the most stringent Indoor Advantage Gold certification for indoor air quality by the Scientific Certification Systems (SCS). Herman Miller's highly popular (and Best of NeoCon® 2006 Best of Competition winner) My Studio Environments was designed to be MBDC Silver Cradle-to-Cradle certified and is 69 percent recyclable, made from 30 percent recycled materials, low-VOC emitting, and GREENGUARD certified. All Knoll furniture systems are GREENGUARD certified for indoor air quality, are manufactured using clean technologies (VOC-free, water-based adhesives, and 100-percent recycled particleboard), and are available with FSC-certified woods. And Steelcase prides itself on taking a holistic approach to designing green by considering the chemical composition of materials at the molecular level, analyzing product lifecycle, and considering end of life disassembly for all new offerings.

Transparency is a buzzword that has manifested itself in the lowering of panels, the inclusion of screens, and in some cases the dissolution of walls altogether—all of which contribute to LEED requirements for light and views. To address this need, last year Suzanne Tick designed an open-weave fabric screen for Knoll's Dividends Horizon office system that delineates space with a semi-transparent material while still allowing for the flow of light and air. By achieving a visual connection to co-workers and the outside world, has privacy fallen by the wayside? Businesses are redressing acoustical issues with sound absorption panels, sound masking systems, like Herman Miller's Quiet Technology (QT) system, and specific privacy nooks within the office.

With this integration of new materials, furniture systems have taken on a more residential aesthetic. Products are becoming lighter in look and feel and more fluid, with more of a European sensibility. As technology advances, workstations must keep up. While we are seeing a trend toward smaller furniture system footprints in favor of a shift toward more collaborative workspaces, worksurfaces themselves also are shrinking. Without boxy computer monitors cluttering up desks, sleek flat-panel models and laptops lend themselves to more shallow worksurfaces. And rather than bogging down furniture with technology, systems are simply technology accessible, and access flooring further helps this cause.

With smaller workstations, designers must maximize space and creatively accommodate storage. However, the question remains whether advanced technology will push the trend toward the totally paperless office. And will we even need the "office" in the future, if workers have all the tools at their fingertips to plug into the server, access the Internet and e-mail, and teleconference from anywhere at anytime? Home bases will be necessary, but the increase of the mobile workforce will indeed reshape the landscape, as touchdown, plug-in areas replace personal cubicles and corporations continue to embrace collaborative working.

Even though sprucing up furniture systems with bells and whistles doesn't exactly negate the ho-hum factor of working in a cubicle, designers and manufacturers alike are doing what they can to create settings in which employees feel content. Simply the ability to personalize workspaces can make all the difference. For example, give the user the ability to adjust airflow or a station positioning—from lounge, to task, or standing height, depending on various needs throughout the day. Moving forward, furniture systems that consider environmental sustainability in a holistic manner—from inception through production and use to end of life and beyond—will find the most success, as will products that set themselves apart from the same tired systems we've been seeing for decades. Spice up materials—add aluminum components or architectural accents, tear off the fabric, discover new greener alternatives—pare down the footprint for a sleeker look, and empower the user to control how she will work, and these systems will find favor with workers for years to come.