Picture the offices of today: open floor plans; swivel chairs; bulky printers and copiers; tangled bundles of cables; the unavoidable necessity of supply closets. Would you believe that in only a few years’ time, it will all be painfully obsolete?
Erka, a Swedish business research institute, is developing innovative concepts that could overhaul the office from the ground up. So, say goodbye to boxy, bulky filing cabinets, because the workplace of tomorrow will have slightly sleeker filing cabinets that are a little less obtrusive than their predecessors in ways you’d have to see to fully believe.
That may sound like something out of a movie, but with rounded corners, support for vertical and lateral filing configurations, and a muted matte finish, these state-of-the-art filing cabinets are anything but fiction. If Erka’s projections come to fruition, by 2017, employees will undoubtably feel more like Star Trek crew members than office workers. Once companies take this step forward, there’s no going back.
Impressive as they are, it’s not just the filing cabinets that make Erka’s plan so futuristic. From the whisper-silent casters on the swivel chairs and utility carts, to the easily gripped doorknobs, to the slimmer desk phone handsets, every aspect of this daring new office has been rethought, retooled, and reinvented. Even the carpeting is a little more stain-resistant, unless something really gets in there, like red wine or a stepped-on M&M.
Incredible!
To top it all off, Erka has managed to secure technologies that have yet to hit the market, integrating them seamlessly into its cutting-edge workplace. Computers in the prototype office run an advance beta build of OS X, which fixes a decent amount of current bugs and features completely redesigned, pleasant-to-click icons.
We don’t know about you, but we can’t wait for the future!
