What the flip is going on with these new… perching pods? Cyber seats? Ergonomic eggs? I really don’t know what to call them. They might technically count as desk chairs, but they’re stretching the definition of that by a pretty wide margin, if that makes sense. They’re definitely designed as a place to sit while at your desk, but the comparisons to a regular desk chair stop there.
How out of the ordinary can a chair really be, I hear you ask? A fair question, but one that would only be asked by someone who had never laid eyes on these alien furnishings. From what I can gather, they’re designed to fulfil a suite of purposes, which are ergonomic, acoustic and interactive. The first one is pretty standard, but who knew about the other two? Apparently, this is all part of contemporary commercial design for offices. Melbourne isn’t a city to miss out on a design trend, so, uh… here we are.
The closer I look at these things, the more I can see that they’re meant to be modular, which hoods that clip on and off to create a sound barrier and privacy screen around the sides and top of the chair. Looking at the instructions, it seems these hoods can also be folded around and clipped over two or more adjacent chairs to create a sort of circular group pod, or ‘hive’. This looks a bit freaky because once the hoods are clipped in, everyone’s stuck inside the hive, but I assume there’s any easy way out. These things are designed to high heaven, so that must have been considered.
In any case, I think these new furnishings are part of a systematic overhaul of the whole office interior fitout. Melbourne is the longest-standing location of the company, so it’s probably due for an update to get it in line with the Sydney and Brisbane outposts. Why someone thought it was a good idea to start with the desk chairs is anyone’s guess, but I suppose I’m not complaining.