A doctor’s office layout can help greatly in facilitating her patients’ well being – a consultation room’s interior design can improve the quality of a visit, the Mayo Clinic announced in a new study.

These surprising findings were revealed through a randomized trial published in Health Environments Research and Design Journal. The Space and Interaction Trial tested a new office interior design, which had both patient and physician facing a computer screen at a semi-circular desk. The study randomly tested 63 pairs of patients and doctors.

Participating physicians felt that they were able to share more information, while patients felt they had better access to information.

“This study supports the notion that the space in which people meet can influence how they work together,” said Dr. Victor Montori, one of the study’s principal authors.

The study was a result of collaboration between the Mayo Clinic and the office furniture company Steelcase.

Is your intel on ergonomics accurate? New discoveries in ergonomic science may have made your old ideas on office ergonomics obsolete.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably not a professional ergonomics consultant – you can rest easy, as you’re not really supposed to keep up with all the latest in the field. (That’s a job for Cubicles.com’s space planning team.)

According to Ankrum Associates, the new developments mainly constitute a relaxing of the old rules – and an increased emphasis on range of movement versus correct posture. Here’s a rundown of the new thinking in ergonomics:

Monitor distance – the old wisdom was that a monitor should be 18-24 inches away. Actually, longer distances relax the eyes – so the ideal distance is actually further than two feet away. Keep the monitor far from your eyes, but close enough to read the text.

Chair placement – people used to believe that the chair’s height should allow the feet to reach the floor, assuming the legs are bent at a 90-degree angle. While this angle isn’t necessarily uncomfortable or harmful, the legs shouldn’t be expected to be nailed down in that single position all the time. The chair should simply be expected to be low enough for the feet to rest on the floor, period.

Posture – formerly, ergonomics books recommended an upright posture, hips perfectly perpendicular to the legs. Now, a wider hip angle seems to be more in line with natural ergonomics – optimally, the hips should be angled at 130 degrees. This aligns the vertebrae to ease the pressure on the intervertebral discs.

Sitting at a recline is also better than sitting upright, as this position eases the strain on your lower back muscles and lightens the load on your spine.

Do you need to hire an ergonomics professional to reduce outbreaks of aching backs and carpal tunnel in your office? Do you need to take the ergonomic bull by the horns?

Science says yes – according to Dr. Jasminka Goldoni Laestadius from the World Bank’s Joint Bank/Fund Health Services Department,

“Just providing new office furniture and written instructions is not sufficient to achieve proper accommodation,” Laestadius’ paper reads. “Good office equipment is a poor substitute for good working positions.”

The study was conceived when the World Bank workforce moved headquarters – an excellent opportunity for Laestadius’ team to study how proactive ergonomics could improve employee health.

The employees were divided into two groups – one simply got new ergonomic office furniture, together with the manuals to set them up and no more. The other received new furniture and information, plus personalized attention from an ergonomics professional.

The second group was found to experience less musculoskeletal pain and eyestrain, with a corresponding jump in productivity. “Better postures meant less pain,” the paper concludes. “This verifies our experience that equipment such as an adjustable chair does not add value unless properly adjusted.”

The study was published in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

(If your office could stand a World Bank-grade ergonomics upgrade, consider checking out Cubicles.com’s selection of ergonomic chairs. Unfortunately, professional ergonomist not included.)

Image © Bel & Bel.

Office furniture that’s been around the block doesn’t usually generate a lot of consumer demand. But what about office furniture that’s been recycled from classic scooters?

Watch out for Spanish design house Bel & Bel’s new creations in your local cubicle farm: super-classy hand-made leather office chairs, made primarily from Italian Vespa scooters. The Vespa’s front shield creates a perfect silhouette for an office chair back rest – combined with a few key spare parts, these make office chairs that make an incredible visual impact.

Also, given the variety of colors that old Vespas came in, you’ll probably find a Vespa chair that suits your office, no problem.

In the old days, Vespa scooters were a symbol of carefree Continental lifestyles, immortalized in movies from the Sixties. But the Vespa’s air-cooled two-stroke engine is dirty and bad for the environment; the proliferation of cheap two-stroke cycles around the world accounts for much of the air pollution in developing countries.

“In the cities of many developing countries, the pollution is horrific,” says acting director of the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California at Davis Daniel Sperling. “Two-stroke engines are a big part of the problem.”

But Vespa is still tres cool for so many retro-maniacs. Sure, old Vespas kill the Earth a little for every mile they run, but that’s no reason to hate them completely, right? So Bel y Bel made the leap from Vespa scooters to office furniture – rejuvenating Vespa retro cool and rehabilitating its polluting former life at the same time.

Forget about ghosts and goblins this Halloween. You know what’s really scary? Lumbar pains, especially when they strike the executive workforce.

If you’re the guy who made the decision to buy the chairs in the office, the suits will blame you for their lowered productivity and increased suffering. Luckily, there’s a way to correct the situation.

For the month of October, Cubicles.com is offering Offices to Go’s Leather Executive Seating solution for the special price of $199! (Originally $239). read more

Herman Miller walks the talk where the green office is concerned.

By 2020, the company plans to minimize solid, air, and water emissions; establish a LEED silver certification for its buildings; use 100% green energy; and sell 100% DfE-approved products.

This builds on a proud Herman Miller company tradition of sustainable design and construction – its headquarters was recognized as one of the first “green” office and manufacturing complexes in the U.S., with corresponding high numbers in employee productivity.

So we’re only following in the revered Herman Miller way when we at Cubicles.com offer remanufactured Herman Miller cubicles in our product lineup.

Our remanufactured cubicles look brand-new, but have been painstakingly reconstructed from pre-used Herman Miller cubes; they’re engineered to look, feel, and work like the brand-new product!

Just look at the extremes we reach to ensure that our cubicles are made with as little impact to the environment as possible:

(read more)

Image of cubicles © Arjun Kartha.

Office cubicles just work for many companies. They’re compact, efficient working spaces. They rationalize the use of office space. Finally, office cubicles offer an egalitarian solution that many highly-stratified companies turn to when communication breaks down between layers in the corporate hierarchy.

But has the time come to reconsider cubicles?

Consider this: layoffs are decimating the workforce – gaps in the cubicle village are starting to show. The space-saving cubicle is becoming obsolete in offices with office space to spare.

At the same time, a growing chunk of the remaining workforce has a different view of cubicle hierarchy: the enclosed walls clash with a millennial generation that values face time.

“Office design is going from an ‘I’ to ‘we’ concept,” says designer Collin Burry of Gensler, the global architectural and design firm. “Millennials would be miserable sitting in a closed office all day long.”

Companies now face the challenge of integrating the differing workspace demands of multiple generations within the same office. Case in point, healthcare concern McKesson and their redesigned office space:

read more

Office chairs have been around for as long as there’ve been offices. Is there anything new under the green fluorescent office glow?

Knoll’s new Generation office chair could be it: the ideal synthesis of materials and design, coming together to bring near-complete freedom of movement to the worker lucky enough to rest his bottom on one.

The Generation’s top 10 inches flex with your back to a near-extreme 90-degree recline. The seat pad can slide forward to reach just the right point behind the knee.

Elastomer upholstery (an open-weave backrest made from a rubber/plastic mix) and a close application of holistic ergonomics has created a chair with enough flexibility to adapt to a wide range of seating postures.

Lean back to watch the fluorescent lights throb, and the chair will bend to your will. Sit straight up, and the chair offers ideal lumbar support.

Knoll partnered with Formway Design to produce the Generation chair. The seat retails for $995 (the armless version) to $1,860 for higher-end models in assorted finishes.

Fastcompany.com reviewed three office chairs – including the Generation chair, which more than held its own against two other office seating stalwarts. Watch the video below, and when you’re done, find out more about the Generation chair by Knoll by reading this article: Generation Chair.

How in the world do you furnish New York’s slimmest townhouse?

This $2.7 million property in the heart of Greenwich Village is centrally located and has been home to some of New York’s foremost personalities, among them Cary Grant and John Barrymore.

The size limitations are quite daunting – 9.5 feet by 42 feet. Sorry, baby grand. Goodbye, king-size bed. And I guess your dreams of having a penthouse-level ballroom will have to go.

But the owner, Stephen Balsamo, seems to have made the most out of the townhouse’s slim margin of space. The New York Post reports –

In the kitchen, a custom stove has all four burners in a single row, rather than the usual two-by-two arrangement. The three floors are all open, but the balconies overlooking the garden were extended, adding depth to make up for lack of width. [..]

Visitors to the home expect to find it dark and claustrophobic, but as a result of the sweeping windows in the back, “every floor has amazing light,” Nicholas said.

But who’s got furniture that can fit in these tight situations? Enter Swedish manufacturer (and furnisher of divorced men’s apartments) IKEA – whoever snaps up this Greenwich Village steal will also score free design advice and $10,000 in IKEA furniture.

Janice Simonsen, IKEA design expert and spokesperson, says “We’re so in love with small spaces that we’re putting an offer on the table… albeit a skinny table.”

Jurgen Bey believes that the cubicle concept shouldn’t be limited to the four walls of one’s office. Set the cubicle free!

Bey’s “Slow Car” concept takes an ordinary office cubicle and puts it on wheels. The concept gives a new twist to the phrase “cubicle jockeys”; one can sit down to work on the road, unfettered by the office, claiming the highway for your company! read more