Public office landscape

The Social Chair is the core component of the Public system. It brings a new level of ergonomics and functionality to soft seating by accommodating a range of people and postures as they work. The chair encourages the purposeful interactions that drive work, at the desk, in group areas and throughout the entire office. Both literally and figuratively, the Social Chair is designed for connection. Its open, inviting shape encourages people to sit and interact, while its top surface seamlessly links to desks, storage units and other Social Chairs. The Social Chair’s seat, made from expanded polypropylene, is lightweight, highly recyclable and comprised of a minimal amount of foam. Based on the belief that the more people connect, the better they work, Public transforms every part of the office, including individual desks, into places for collaboration. Public is the first office system to support casual work and to provide comfort at the desk, in circulation spaces and in group areas — all with a consistent design vocabulary. Visually uniform and modular surfaces, storage and seating can be configured into a broad range of settings that encourage fluid transitions between collaborative and focused work. Public was designed to support fluid interactions and spontaneous conversations across the entire landscape, keeping the office in a state of flow, where people are engaged, focused and able to move freely between collaborative and individual work activities. With a modular kit of parts, Public enables people to work how and where they want. Casual group areas become destinations for brainstorming, teamwork, presentations and meetings. Individual workspaces facilitate sharing and interaction, or productivity and privacy. Public elements can be arranged into configurations that express culture and foster belonging — and that can evolve as needs change. Layers of colour and material create visual consistency and enhance the flow of movement from individual to group activities and from private to shared spaces. Public’s highly versatile elements can be reconfigured as an organisation grows and evolves, eliminating the need to acquire a new system and dispose of the old. Public’s carefully considered responsible design uses the least possible materials.