Office Workstation

Furnishings and layout are an integral stage of any project and plays an authoritative role in functioning of that respective space. This article focuses on office workstation, their application; design concepts and detailing. Office spaces must have an environment that should accommodate a large number of people working on their jobs for more than 8 hours a day. The office spaces require furniture for the person to work i.e. an office desk and chair. The most basic design requirement is that the desk must be big enough to lodge a PC/laptop and its accessories, top and/or storage space to keep all the paperwork, and the surrounding circulation space.

The context for office workstations required to be modular in nature which gives the unit flexibility of being versatile in use. They can be categorized into wall-based, dock-based, beam-based, storage-based and group-based. The basic design criteria behind is that the user must be physically comfortable and be able to sit and work for long hours. The spine of the user must be in comfort and the legs should be free to use the foot rest whenever exhaustion is felt. Therefore, functionality, design, aesthetics and adjustability factor are key features to any office workstations.

The office furniture involves various sorts of categories according to the user. Modular furniture designs offer many design solutions for the same. The following points would briefly describe about the above statement:

Workstation for Staff

The workstations here are of prominent importance and utilization. The requirement for an ideal workstation design and arrangement is to accommodate maximum users without compromising any other spatial needs. This can be worked by varied layouts and shapes. Modular furnishings here offer wide ranging products in multiple material and colour range.

Workstation for Single Person

In this scenario, the furniture is used by a single person in addition to extra seating used by the people who would come in for meeting with that person. This includes a desk with pc space, storage cabinets which are part of the unit.

The size and height of partition relate to users as well as architecture. The partition must be high enough to be able to provide required privacy as well as be efficiency in needed communication between 2 persons. These stations can be explained in the pattern of their design specifications listed as follows:

The I-Shaped Stations

This layout is a simple desk chair arrangement and can be placed in versatile places. Being one directional, they can be faced against a wall or another unit itself.

The Cross Stations

This layout comprises of 4 L-shaped units of desk and chair in a Greek/Roman cross formation. This unit further can be arranged into different geometrical layout like in linear, staggered, or random formations.

The Discussion Stations

These stations are specifically used where there is no need for separate workstations. The design offices involving fields like graphic designing, animation, architecture and other creative fields find a great use for these kinds of arrangement. This enhances the process of group activity and team involvement. The arrangement is usually a large/long table with more than 3 chairs/stools to sit around.

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