Public space and meeting areas

Public Space & Meeting Areas is one of Offecct’s key business areas, where solutions for creative meetings are being produced.

Offecct’s vision is to design furniture that vitalizes meetings and stimulates exchange of ideas. This means designing furniture that can be easily integrated into the company’s operations while simultaneously forming inviting and inspiring elements of freshness and surprise.

Designing public spaces and meeting areas that bring out the best in people, facilitate cooperation, creation and achievement of great results has challenged organizational experts and architects since the beginning of the industrialism.

With an increasing shift from product to service production, the demands on the working place have changed. The modern office has become a meeting place where ideas are exchanged and new knowledge is generated. Creativity has become many companies’ most important competitive advantage both when it comes to winning customers and attracting the right employees.

The past few years’ rapid technological advancements with wireless networks, smartphones and internet communication has expanded the office and freed work from physical boundaries. Activity-based workplaces may be the solution for the knowledge-centered businesses.

More architects now refer to activity based workplaces where the office is designed around the tasks and activities that must be accomplished. This may require space for everything from individual tasks to large project tables. Some spaces may encourage collaboration while others allow employees to be alone and silently concentrate. The fixed workspaces are replaced with “touchdown” areas where anyone can sit down to work. Flexible solutions allow the office to either expand or scale down in order to conform to the circumstances and present activities. One challenge in this kind of working and meeting space is controlling the noise pollution. This can be done efficiently with sound absorbing panels and furniture.