contact_magazine_#34_EN

Edition 34 

Post-pandemic office design. 

Reference story: CCE in the Icon Vienna. 

Green is in: sustainable office furniture trends. 

What’s on your desk, Murat Özcelik?

Question: “Do we have 

to redefine the term 

office?” Answer: “Yes!” 

How will we work in the future? The pandemic has reshuffled the cards, 

and the more we sit at home and work remote, the more important it 

becomes to find solutions. In the title story we have thought about some 

constructive ideas about the new profile of requirements for the post- 

COVID office. And one thing became immediately clear: the emptiness 

in the office caused by remote work and work at home must be filled 

again. But how? 

Apart from this, we visit a cool New Work office above the roofs of 

Vienna, where the interior architectural concept has provided a new 

boost to ideas. And we transport you to Amsterdam to a boudoir of 

clouds and waves. Here the architect’s office Beyond Space has dreamed 

up an ode to sky and sea: simply fascinating! 

The journey continues with the red-hot topic “Sustainable Office Furniture 

Trends” and arrives at a clear conclusion: green is in! 

Furthermore, there are tips on break management, useful ideas for everyday 

office life, a practical New Work dictionary and a fascinated look at 

the desk of Murat Özcelik, geneticist, microbiologist and architect all in 

one. 

The conclusion for us: for those interested in the future world of work 

we can warmly recommend the following pages. 

Laura und Markus Wiesner

Post-pandemic office design 04 

From personal workplace to collective office? 08 

Reference story: CCE in the Icon Vienna 10 

Sustainable office furniture trends 14 

Break management in everyday working life 16 

Trend watching: useful ideas for everyday office life 18 

Lean Coffee as alternative to the rigid meeting 19 

Offices from around the world: Siersema Amsterdam 20 

What‘s on your desk, Murat Özcelik? 23 

The New-Work-Dictionary 24 

Showroom 26 

Publisher: Wiesner-Hager Möbel GmbH, Linzer Strasse 22, A-4950 Altheim, T +43/(0)7723/460-0, altheim@wiesner-hager.com, www.wiesner-hager.com, 

thinknewwork.com; Concept/Editor: Wiesner-Hager, mintmind Communication GmbH; Layout: mintmind Communication GmbH, guest author: 

Wojciech Czaja; typing and printing errors reserved; 05/2022. 

contact 3

Office Concepts 

Post-pandemic office design: 

reinventing the 

geographical centre. 

The more we sit at home and work remote, the more important it will 

be to create attractive places to foster team spirit and the organisation’s 

corporate culture. This materialises as a clear profile of requirements 

for the post-COVID office. And yes, this involves more than just a lobby 

suitable for Instagram postings. 

4 contact

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the 

OWIU Design Studio with headquarters in Los Angeles 

tackled the issue of how we are going to work 

in the future. The focus was on the development of 

lobbies, break rooms and conference areas where so 

called “social distancing” is possible. The basis for 

this was Le Corbusier’s “plan libre” developed in 

1914: an open, flexible layout with pergolas, wooden 

rostra and modular room sequences will support the 

implementation of various types of furniture and 

usages. Spaciousness, height and air are thus intended 

to make life for the virus very uncomfortable. 

The smart, photogenic renderings of OWIU’s 

concepts got jubilant mentions in all architecture 

blogs, including dezeen, archello and architizer, and 

was even hailed on Twitter and LinkedIn. What we 

do know is: The great challenge after two years of 

the pandemic is not how to herd everybody together 

with as much distance between them as possible, but 

how we are going to fill the gaps in the office resulting 

from remote work at home. Or, as the Viennese 

futurologist Tristan Horx says: “A few years ago we 

realised that cubicles are a failure. And now we know 

that the classic open office propagated in the last ten 

years is an obsolescent model.” 

At present Horx is working on a book about the 

future of work. The 29-year-old futurologist wants 

to keep the title to himself. Planned date of publication: 

2023. But he can let us in on this bit of 

information: "The days of being on constant duty 

© shutterstock 



and permanent presence in the office are over. In 

future we shall differentiate whether we want to do 

concentrated or collective work, whether we prefer 

to be alone or in company. Depending on the sector, 

company and activity spectrum I forecast that in the 

long term there’ll be a remote work quotient remaining 

of 30 to 70 percent. The question is, however: 

what are we going to do with all that empty space?” 

For smaller firms, 

says Sabine Zinke, 

senior consultant at 

M.O.O.CON and in 

charge of the worlds of 

work division, this is 

not an issue. “In practice, 

it’s hardly possible 

to rent off 100 or 200 

square metres of office 

space. But starting from 

a workforce of 300, the 

potential already exists 

for saving space.” While 

in the Erste Campus 

at the time of moving 

in, the company was 

still talking of a radical 

workplace ratio of 0.7 

(meaning 7 desks for 

10 full-time positions), 

today this value is the 

conventional standard 

in Austria. “In some 

companies we already calculate a ratio of 0.55 to 

0.6”, says the expert. 

However, cutting back should not be the primary 

motor for change. It is far more about implementing 

differentiated zones for focused tasks on the 

one hand, and for informal, frequently spontaneous 

brainstorming on the other. 

“One of the most important tasks in future office 

spaces will be to provide places for chance encounters", 

says Zinke. “But of course the rooms have to 

The great challenge 

after two years of the 

pandemic is not how to 

herd everybody together with 

as much distance between 

them as possible, but how 

we are going to fill the 

gaps in the office 

resulting from remote 

work at home.“ 

be equipped with the necessary technology, so as 

to enable digital and hybrid working with perfect, 

smoothly-running interfaces.” 

Bernhard Kern, CEO of Roomware Consulting 

GmbH, thinks that employer branding will gain 

in significance. “We’ll have to deliver a very attractive 

option for strengthening communication and 

projecting our corporate culture if we want to entice 

employees back to the 

office as often as possible.” 

Important tools 

are high-quality IT 

media and an office 

landscape that is as heterogeneous 

as possible, 

with many different 

workplace options. 

According to Kern: “An 

attractive lobby suitable 

for Instagram postings 

won’t suffice, as some 

people seem to think.” 

What this office 

transformation might 

look like is evident for 

instance in the newly 

built office of ACP 

TEKAEF in Ried im 

Innkreis, Upper Austria, 

also the office of Pharmig 

(the Association 

of the Pharmaceutical Industry of Austria), which 

started operations a few months ago. The latter has 

reduced its size from 650 to 480 square metres, “but 

you can hardly sense this reduction", says Pharmig 

general secretary Alexander Herzog. "Because on the 

one hand we have a shared-desk policy throughout 

the office, and on the other we attached importance, 

right from the start, to the multi-functionality of 

every room and every workplace.” If the boss isn’t in 

the building, his room is turned into a conference 

room at the touch of a button, which can be reserved 

for a meeting by means of an app. 


And the coronavirus has left its traces also in 

banking. In the coming years the main branch of 

the Kärntner Sparkasse on Neuer Platz in Klagenfurt 

is to be completely remodelled. A workplace 

ratio of 0.6 will yield area reserves of unprecedented 

dimensions. “The coronavirus has turned the classic 

office concept completely upside down", says CEO 

Gabriele Semmelrock-Werzer. “A major part of the 

team will work at home; we’ll have to get used to 

that, and that’s quite OK. Our task will be to recharge 

the geographical location of the office with 

added value so that we can strengthen our team 

spirit also in the future, and boost our organisation’s 

corporate culture. We have to redefine the concept 

of office completely anew. An exciting task.” 

The office in the post-COVID age – so much is 

clear – has nothing to do with emptiness, troublesome 

viruses or perspex partitions standing around. 

The post-COVID office is first and foremost a hothouse 

of diversity, ease and interpersonal flexibility. 

Wojciech Czaja 




From personal 

workplace to 

collective office? 

Right next to the colourfully framed family photos 

is a diary with personal appointments noted 

down in it. The drained coffee cup with the 

inscription “Top Professional” is waiting to be 

refilled. A greeting card hangs on the pin wall. 

The personal desk in the office – a piece of home that 

is being questioned more and more. The decentralisation 

of work, work at home and remote work models 

are becoming integral components of the new working 

world. Particularly the alternation between office 

and one’s own four walls has meanwhile become 

standard practice. For this reason office space is being 

constantly cut back. Result: One desk per employee is 

often no longer feasible. 

© Robert Maybach 

Between area concentration and creative 

extension. 

You can’t have both – work at home and a personal 

workplace in the office. More and more firms share 

this opinion. The orphaned desk during the days of 

remote work at home is unused space. Costs can be 

saved by reducing this through concentrating office 

space. One option for concentrating space is the collective 

use of desks (= desk sharing). What was once a 

personal workplace is now shared by several persons. 


To compensate for office-space concentration, 

the office environment is being made increasingly 

attractive. Hitherto unused areas or zones are being 

used for new and creative spatial typologies. Working 

cafés, libraries, campus zones and intermediate 

zones support collaboration as well as undisturbed 

and concentrated work. Communication areas 

with modern equipment enable the integration of 

virtual participants and support hybrid communication 

with colleagues outside the office. The more 

different spatial options are available, the easier it is 

for employees to find the suitable environment for 

their various tasks. 

While an independent place at a shared desk 

usually suffices for temporary employees from 

satellite offices, for those persons who alternate 

between work in the office and work at home, the 

requirement for team-oriented collaboration is 

essential during the times they are present at the 

office. Communication must flow freely within 

the individual department or in the project team 

and be supported by the office environment. The 

decision between spatial condensation and spatial 

extension apart from desks is not an either/or: as 

individual work space is restricted, you need an extension 

of creative zones for different activities and 

team-oriented project work. 

Are employees being hounded out of the 

office? 

The actual restructuring of office space in fact 

involves several questions and issues. If there’s a 

reservation system for desk-sharing workplaces, 

skirmishing often breaks out to get the best desks. 

Some people even speak about this system being 

used to hound employees out of the office entirely. 

Lots of people prefer to work from home rather 

than having to face the pressure of finding a place. 

People of habit often have problems if they have to 

re-orientate themselves every day and adapt their 

work method. If a firm introduces desk sharing, 

unavoidably it will have to establish a clean desk 

policy as well. The desk will then have to be completely 

cleared and left clean at the close of the day. 

After all, another employee might need the desk 

the next day. 

Door opener to the new world of work. 

Nevertheless, there are ways of simplifying the 

organisation of collectively used work spaces. The 

morning fuss about finding a suitable desk can be 

counteracted with a pre-reservation system for the 

workplaces. Employees have the possibility of reserving 

a desk on the previous day, or at the beginning 

of the week, thus ensuring an orderly and easygoing 

procedure. Mobile trolleys and lockers for every 

employee save time when setting up a temporary 

workplace. 

Collaboration between the departments – despite 

the distance between desks – can be facilitated 

by setting up creative spaces, meeting places and 

intermediate zones that support discussion and 

communication. What is even more efficient is to 

plan the office concept as open units in the style of 

modern co-working spaces. A communal structural 

environment is set up in the open space for persons 

who work closely together, creating excellent 

organisational and creative scope, supported by 

acoustically effective furnishings and by partitioning 

and zoning screens. Individual retreat zones 

are available for concentrated work and remote 

talks, for instance silent rooms. 

Desk sharing and collective office space are not 

feasible in all the departments of a firm. Some employees 

will still be tied permanently to their desks 

because of the nature of their work. But here, too, 

collectively usable zones can be devised during the 

planning phase. A logically worked-out structure 

is needed for the sensible and efficient overall 

planning of an office layout optimally adjusted to 

workflows and communication streams. 

Despite the difficulties and reservations about the 

loss of individual workplaces, collectively used 

office areas open up many doors in the world of 

New Work. They offer scope for all forms of work, 

encompassing everything from increased collaboration 

to activity-based working. Particularly because 

digitisation is increasingly simplifying routine 

processes, thus enabling location-independent 

work, the office will become even more of a pivotal 

meeting point that promotes collaboration and 

cooperation. Diversity in collectively used facilities 

supports teamwork and generates social friction – 

the hothouse of innovative ideas. Organisational 

culture plays a central role here. 

Despite remote work and work at home, employees 

should enjoy coming into the office where they 

encounter a supportive environment for their tasks. 


Reference Story 

Clean Capital Energy – 

New-Work-office above 

the roofs of Vienna. 

In one of the three office towers of the Icon 

Vienna, a hotspot of urban office culture, you 

will find the new Vienna office of the Clean 

Capital Energy (CCE) company. The modern 

office believes wholeheartedly in natural colours 

and extensive greening. Concept and 

interior architecture were entrusted to Roomware 

Consulting. The furnishing was provided 

by Wiesner-Hager. 

10 contact 

The Icon Vienna office towers are located right next to 

Vienna Central Station. Their architecture immediately 

strikes the eye through the differences in height. 

The CCE company has its Vienna office in one of the 

complexes. CCE conceives, implements, finances and 

manages global alternative investments in the vibrant 

growth segment of photovoltaics. “The new office is 

the headquarters of the CCE holding and is used first 

and foremost as meeting point for the group’s national 

and international business. The central location at the 

© Martin Zorn Photography

Optically, 

the office 

is kept in 

natural 

colours. 

© Martin Zorn Photography 



Reference Story 


Central Station with its excellent connections is a huge 

advantage", says Martin Dürnberger, CEO of CCE. 

The office is landscaped as open space. Task sectors are 

organised in open units, each of which accommodates 

four persons. The individual teams are separated from 

each other using cage cabinets. Furthermore, open 

shelves with greening elements are used as partitions. 

Particular attention was paid to ergonomics in 

designing the workplaces. Besides ergonomic swivel 

chairs for dynamic seating, all desks are electronically 

height-adjustable. 

There is an intermediate zone with lounge area in the 

centre, providing scope for casual meetings, regeneration, 

relaxed and concentrated work or informal talks. 

Moreover, there is a large workbench seating six for 

flexible and temporary use. A multifunctional area for 

quick, uncomplicated meetings is also integrated in the 

open space. A large high table with bar stools conjures 

up an atmosphere of friendly informality. “A great 

variety of areas is devised to ensure employees have the 

opportunity for activity-based work. There are rooms 

for various functions – meeting, focus and telephone 

rooms", as interior architect Magdalena Baum of Roomware 

Consulting describes the design concept. 

The zoned-off conference room offers seating for up to 

fourteen persons. Comfortable conference chairs and 

modern technical equipment ensure convenient and 

uncomplicated meetings, also the integration of virtual 

participants at hybrid meetings. 

“Optically, the office is kept in natural colours. We 

opted most of all for fabrics in delicate grey and green 

tones. All the materials we used are high-quality", the 

interior architect was keen to stress. A special highlight 

in the office is the great emphasis on living green. 

Fact box: 

Total area: 354,50 m² 

Client: 

Clean Capital Energy 

Interior architecture 

and office concept: Roomware Consulting 

Furnishings: 

Wiesner-Hager Möbel 



“The plants provide a setting all of their own, entirely in 

the style of biophilic design", says Magdalena Baum. 

The open-space concept of the entire office will be 

infused into the organisational culture as well. “In the 

new Vienna CCE office we have in principle attached 

special importance to a richly versatile and wide-ranging 

work environment, in which our employees find a 

supportive setting for their tasks. Our modern office 

landscape is enhanced by the panorama view across the 

city", Martin Dürnberger sums up. 


In the new Vienna CCE 

office we have in principle 

attached special importance to a 

richly versatile and wide-ranging 

work environment. 



Green is in: 

Sustainable office 

furniture trends. 

The production, delivery and disposal of an average office chair in toto cause the same amount of CO 2 

as producing five kilograms of conventional beef. Prior to every decision to buy, we usually assess the 

product based on price/performance, material, design and necessity. If this evaluation turns out to be 

predominantly positive, we conclude the buying process. But one important point is often overlooked: 

Is my product at all sustainable? 

Sustainability is gaining in significance in nearly all 

areas of life. And this trend won’t pass office equipment 

by. Greenwashing and a sea of eco-labels don’t 

impress anymore and haven’t done for a long time. The 

following trends are evident in the office sector: 

Ecological transparency. 

For simple, everyday things like apples from the 

region, it’s still relatively easy to assess the degree of 

sustainability. It becomes more difficult for more 

complex products such as office furniture, in which 

the supply chains and the industrial manufacture have 

to be included in calculations. Ecological transparency 

helps us here. Precise calculations on CO 2 

consumption 

and further relevant effects on the environment 

outline how ecological a specific article of furniture 

is, and leave the evaluation of the product to the end 

customer. Wiesner-Hager has positioned itself here as 

trailblazer. The eco-balances – Environmental Product 

Declarations (EPDs) – certified under ISO 14025 can 

be requested for every product in every version and 

reflect the entire life cycle of the piece of furniture. 

Quality. 

High-quality office furniture is basically more sustainable 

than cheaply made alternatives. Quality furniture 

is distinctive for its long service life. So it doesn’t have 

to be replaced or disposed of for many years. This is 

good for the environment and for the purse. 


Natural materials. 

Regenerative raw materials like wood are at present 

trending again and are climate-neutral in essence. But 

one type of wood isn’t always like another – what 

counts is the origin: for example, Wiesner-Hager opts 

for PEFC or FSC certified timbers from sustainably 

managed forest stock. 

Reuse instead of throwaway. 

The call for re-manufacturing, in other words re-using 

used furniture parts is becoming ever louder. In this 

model, old products are taken back from customers 

and disassembled. Individual parts or modular units 

are processed and used for new furniture. The customer 

thus receives a product that’s practically new in 

value and with a much better CO 2 

ratio than a brand 

new one. 

Recycling. 

Of all materials, plastic has the worst reputation. Large 

pieces of plastic and micro-plastic are choking the 

oceans. Nowadays, however, recycled synthetic 

materials are increasingly being used, particularly PET 

(from the polyester family). There are many possibilities 

of using recycled plastic in office furniture. You 

can find old plastic for example in compressed 

non-wovens for partitions and fabric upholstery for 

chairs and acoustic elements. 

Made in Europe. 

The shorter the distance from the production site to 

the end customer, the lower the CO 2 

emission. If you 

take care when buying office furniture that the transportation 

distances are short, as with products 

stamped Made in Europe, you are acting more 

sustainably. Wiesner-Hager makes all their products 

in Austria and in Humpolec in the Czech Republic. 



Office Life 

About time! 

Break management 

in everyday working. 

A quick glance at the watch: five minutes to 

the lunch break. The stack of urgent work to 

be done has reached a dizzying height. The 

next meeting is already at one o’clock. 

Just wolf down a bit of the sandwich you’ve 

brought to work and get the most urgent todos 

done on the side. 

In our increasingly performance-oriented society we 

are often liable to fall into the trap of thinking that 

fewer breaks simultaneously mean more efficiency. 

Scientists from the Draugiem Group from Latvia have 

proven the exact opposite. They examined test persons 

who work all day at the computer screen. Results show 

that employees who take several adequate breaks are 

on average able to perform the most work. Regeneration 

and time management are therefore an indispensable 

necessity for coping successfully with 

everyday working life. 

Basically, the following applies: If the day’s work lasts 

longer than six hours, a break of at least thirty minutes 


has to be taken – by law. Regeneration and variety 

are the declared objectives during this break period. 

Sitting at the desk all day requires compensatory 

movement – best of all in the fresh air. But the main 

focus should be on lunch. Remaining at the workplace 

and staring at the screen is taboo. The break is an 

excellent opportunity to chat and relax. Break areas or 

outdoor areas such as activity gardens are particularly 

effective in forgetting the desk for a while. Taking 

a break together with workmates enlivens the work 

atmosphere and contributes to positive collaboration. 

The main thing is to leave the work situation behind 

you if you really wish to wind down. And joining 

workmates at lunch who you don’t have so much to 

do with during your everyday routine also promotes 

internal networking. 

Objective and subjective time. 

Nevertheless, taking a well-deserved break usually 

turns out to be quite difficult. According to Harvard 

Business Manager (01/22), this is because so-called 

objective time does not tally with subjective time. Objective 

time encompasses the general understanding 

of time such as calendar days or 

the time of day, while subjective 

time corresponds to each 

person’s very individual perception 

and rhythm. A practical 

example can illustrate 

the conundrum: lunch break 

is set for everyone at 12 noon 

on the dot (= objective time). 

For your own sense of rhythm 

and hunger sensation a break 

at 2 pm would suit your timing 

more (= subjective time). But since 

the break time is precisely specified, you might have 

your lunch under pressure while you’re still working 

on the side. The regeneration factor is non-existent 

and the time-out misses its actual objective. 

Self-determined time management. 

If we worked more according to our own sense of 

rhythm, we could avoid overload and improve our 

own time management. This means, in practical terms: 

whoever has the opportunity should time their breaks 

themselves. This independent time management supports 

one’s own personal work method. Relief when 

under pressure also promises the purposeful creation 

of freedoms. If the entire working day is strictly 

scheduled, little time is left for breathing spaces. In 

fact, these “unproductive” interims are an especial 

source of creativity and innovation. If you prioritise 

your tasks, you give yourself extra scope to address 

them. Having dealt with the most important of them, 

you can take a break with a good conscience. 

So it’s time - time to take the important breaks. No 

one needs to fear loss of efficiency and performance 

in doing so. Regeneration supports mental work and 

creativity and avoids the long-term mental and physical 

effects of stress. 


Trend Watching 

Useful ideas 

for everyday 

office life. 

MURAL – Let’s transform teamwork! 

MURAL is an online whiteboard for teams, which is designed to 

assist visual collaboration and quick problem-solving with a userfriendly 

digital screen. Using exclusive Facilitation Superpowers 

features, you are able to organise visual teamwork – even with 

distributed and hybrid teams. MURAL is not a conventional 

online whiteboard, but provides high-performance moderation 

features, guided methods and fundamental expertise needed by 

firms to transform teamwork. 

www.mural.com 

© Mural 

deskbird: 

Just two clicks to get 

to your workplace. 

The deskbird app enables firms to store all available workplaces 

in the office in less than five minutes. Employees can 

then reserve these with just two clicks - the focus is clearly 

on the user. Via the mobile or web app, employees can also 

see which workmates are in the office at what time. The 

integration with Slack, Teams and the Calendar is easy and 

quick. 

www.deskbird.com 

Dyson HEPA cool 

formaldehyde air purifier 

Pollutants can rapidly proliferate 

in large office spaces – but they are 

invisible. The Dyson HEPA cool 

formaldehyde air purifier detects 

and destroys pollutants with a 

high-performance and completely 

sealed filter system. It cleans the 

air everywhere in the room and 

provides it with a refreshing air 

stream - for a cleaner and more 

pleasant environment throughout 

the whole firm. 

© deskbird 

18 contact 

© dyson 

www.dyson.com/commercial/ 

air-treatment 

© dyson

Office Life 

Relaxed and efficient: 

Lean Coffee as 

alternative to the 

rigid meeting. 

Openly discussing important topics in a relaxed 

café atmosphere – this puts in a nutshell the 

basic principle of Lean Coffee, a very individual 

format for meetings. 

The system was designed in Seattle by the two Agile 

Coaches Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith. The 

characteristic of Lean Coffee is that there is no 

fixed agenda beforehand. Only the basic, roughly 

outlined topic is named. Anyone who can identify 

with the topic is invited. The invitation is hung up 

for all to see. The concrete agenda is then put to discussion 

by the participants directly in the meeting. 

Timing is precise so as to be able to discuss as many 

different items as possible. Lean Coffee works best 

in groups of up to ten persons. Priority is given to 

collective knowledge-sharing and to projects in the 

start phase in order to collect input and ideas. In 

this case the word Lean derives from lean thinking, 

that is focused brainwork, the avoidance of profuseness, 

and a perspective on the big picture. Coffee 

is meant to accentuate the easygoing and informal 

atmosphere. 

How Lean Coffee works. 

Whoever extends the invitation is responsible for 

coordination and preparation. Usually a flip chart 

or whiteboard is needed, also pens and post-its. At 

the start, the coordinator collects all topics introduced 

by those present. These are then prioritised 

and timed within the team. The coordinator draws 

three columns on the whiteboard: to be discussed, 

in discussion, and discussed. All the collected 

topics are listed in the agreed order in the “to be 

discussed” column. Afterwards they are transferred 

– based on the state of discussion – into the next 

two columns. 

The main thing is to prioritise the different topics. 

The limited amount of time might mean that the 

less important points aren’t dealt with or are postponed 

until the next Lean meeting. The exact time 

frame per discussion item is specified, but can be 

abbreviated or prolonged after a vote by the group. 

Hence, Lean Coffee fully relies on group dynamics 

and collaboration. 

Summary: The meetings are structured and yet 

open. Anyone interested in the topic can take part. 

It is hierarchy-free and requires no or very little 

conceptual preparation. Mushrooming discussions 

are dodged by judicious timing. Apart from this, 

informal communication also gets its fair share. 

After all, the meeting is designed to proceed in an 

informal and stress-free manner. Lean Coffee isn’t 

a rigid construct and can therefore be modified 

according to the team’s personal requirements. The 

main thing is to keep the basic intentions of Lean 

Coffee in mind as a general aim: unforced 

discussions without going over the time limit. 



Offices from around the world 

A boudoir 

of clouds and 

waves. 

© Peter Tijhuis 



For the Amsterdam interior designer Siersema, 

the architect’s office Beyond Space has opted 

for a kilometre of Kvadrat fabric and created 

a poetic concept made of partitions and soft 

portals. An ode to sky and sea. 


While he was still alive around 1900, the 

German writer Christian Morgenstern 

dreamed of the dissolution of the dividing 

line between heaven and earth. “Clouds will 

perhaps be revered in a special way some day 

– as the only visible barrier separating human 

beings from infinity, as the majestic curtain 

before the open, fourth wall of our earthly 

stage.” The Dutch architect’s office Beyond 

Space has now reconstructed this metaphor as 

a tangible theatrical image, or rather, image of 

work. Near Entrepothaven east of Amsterdam, 

the office literally enveloped the local interior design 

studio Siersema in a new garment of sky- and 

ocean-blue curtain material. 

“Here we are in the midst of a new urban development 

zone, formerly a location for storage and logistics 

warehouses for Dutch shipping", says Stijn de Weerd, 

who runs Beyond Space together with his partner 

Remi Versteeg. “The area is still being developed; a 

rather bleak, industrial and workaday aura still dominates 

the surroundings. Our clients themselves deal 

professionally in carpets, textiles and interior decoration, 

so it was important for us to give the space a 

specific potential in atmosphere and friendly warmth.” 

The result of these considerations is a large open space 

measuring around 200 square metres in which rooms, 

work zones and conference areas were defined by the 

most delicate, the softest imaginable construction 

material of all time. 


Offices from around the world 

We used about 

a kilometre 

of fabric 

in all. 

boudoir – in a cotton-wool cloud floating on an 

aesthetic of sky and oceanic feeling. 

As regards technical aspects, the secret behind 

this extraordinary interior project is the use of a 

standard polyester material; in the contracting 

sector it is among the most popular products by 

Kvadrat and Siersema. The textile, woven of gossamer 

threads, meets all fire and smoke 

regulations, and it could be laser-cut, thanks to 

its dense weave. Edging it to avoid fraying or wild 

threads wasn’t necessary. Only a fine lead strip 

was sewn into the bottom edge to attain an even 

weight and to give it a specific inertia so that 

the whole construct doesn’t relapse into chaos at 

the slightest gust of wind. If the fabric has to be 

cleaned in two or three years, the lengths can be 

removed from the ceiling in one piece. 

The material pot-pourri is complemented by a 

light-grey linoleum floor by Forbo. “Linoleum 

is warm, pleasantly haptic and has excellent 

acoustic qualities", says de Weerd. “We 

have even designed home and office 

furniture with it.” A high bar table in 

the middle of the room is used simultaneously 

as kitchen and conference 

table for stand-up meetings. The 

table is likewise an exclusive design 

by Beyond Space. And then there 

are the potted plants; their delicate, 

dark-green leaves enter into a 

somehow flirtatious dialogue with the 

bright ocean waves. 


“We used about a kilometre of fabric 

in all; the important aspect for us was 

to create a specific transparency and veillike 

nebulosity", says de Weerd. The choice fell 

ultimately on thin, translucent, almost transparent 

gauze from the Danish house of Kvadrat, 

with the colour designation Ocean Hue. “We 

experimented around quite a bit with the wave 

density and the distance between the single 

lengths of material until we achieved the desired 

effect. After quite a few iterations, we obtained a 

spatial impression that was at times buoyant and 

light, at times clearly screened off and reclusive, 

without feeling at any time entirely enveloped 

and suffocated in material.” In some places you 

hardly had the feeling of standing in a new building, 

just finished in 2021. You are deliciously 

immersed – in a reinterpretation of great-aunt’s 

“We have often heard that the Siersema office 

space has a feminine aura, and we see this 

as a compliment, because we are after all an architecture 

firm with two men at the top", says Stijn 

de Weerd. “It’s wonderful that we have succeeded 

in conveying such an image.” Beyond Space itself 

describes this design approach as radical cosiness. 

“A certain cosiness and homeliness is important 

in the office, because I also like to feel good when 

I’m at work", says the architect. “However, an 

office shouldn’t be confused with a living room. 

The visible radicalness here is a way of 'coming 

on strong', playing with images and clichés.” And 

a form of manifesting the core competence of an 

interior designer with tongue in cheek and a great 

dash of poetry. 



What’s on your desk? 

04 

06 

03 

11 

02 

01 

05 

10 

09 

08 

07 

© 

What’s on your desk, 

Murat Özcelik? 

In actual fact, Murat Özcelik is a trained geneticist and microbiologist. 

Later he worked as a consultant for an international consulting 

company. By chance he finally landed in architecture when in 

2013 he took over as CEO of the architecture and construction 

firm Wunschhaus, which specialises in planning and building 

residential houses from one source. His bureau is in the heart of 

Vienna, with a view of Belvedere Palace. “I always wanted to work 

in a unique location, in an old building with its own history and 

identity", says Murat, now forty years of age. “When I have to make 

long telephone calls I pack up and take a turn around Belvedere 

Palace Park, absolutely fantastic.” At present Özcelik is working on 

major private projects on Lago Maggiore and on Mallorca. Large 

villas for prominent people. The names are confidential. “This we 

don’t tell", says Özcelik. “I value discretion and the private sphere; 

we want to convey this atmosphere of trust and well-being to our 

clients when they call by.” Instead of bright meeting rooms with 

modern conference furnishings, his office has cosy corners with 

lounge furniture, dark textiles and crazy wallpapers. You feel as 

though you’re taking a seat in a luxury hotel in the lobby and are 

waiting for your date. Özcelik: “That’s just what we want!” 


To be honest I don’t like office furniture and hate swivel chairs. 

Sitting upright permanently gives me the feeling of having to 

be very conventional. This stresses me. I much rather work just 

as I am now – reclining, lying around, in a relaxed posture, like 

a hedonistic Roman emperor. 

My co-workers chose the sofa. I wasn’t involved in an overemotional 

way. The main thing for me was that I can lounge 

around and feel snug and cosy. I like the velvet! 

Books are lying around everywhere: a source of inspiration for 

my clients. I myself get my inspiration most of all from garden 

books. You can find wonderful pictures in them. 

I love this tailor-made wallpaper by Wall & Decò, an Italian 

producer. The two Renaissance figures radiate warmth into the 

room, something personal. 

A table of Carrara marble. Crazy, what it weighs! 

You can’t really call this bunch of tulips the crown of botany, 

can you? A bit pathetic, don’t you think? But in general I like 

plants. The older I get the more I delight in every new leaf that 

sprouts. 

I have about fifty or sixty leather jackets. This red one is one of 

my special favourites. 

Incredible, how long I had to scout around for a matching 

rucksack! 

The helmet is a must on the building site. During the construction 

phase I make a gift to my clients of blue rubber boots and 

a helmet in our typical Wunschhaus blue. 

Carpet is the best noise absorber in the home and at work. I 

find rooms with poor acoustics very unpleasant. 

Coffee. My daily turbo boost. 


Office Life 

1. 

Digital transformation: 

This is the ultimate synonym for New 

Work. It has the prime aim of automatising 

processes and workflows, and of 

reducing paper-based documents. 

To implement this transformation, 

the prime essentials are a clean file 

structure for organising digital document 

storage, and backup copies in 

the form of Cloud solutions. In the 

long term, digital documents should 

not in any way be a dead archive, but 

with filters, tags and search processes 

contribute to a vibrant, collaborative 

and team-oriented way of working. 

3. 

2. 

Activity Based Working: New Work offices offer employees 

and business partners differentiated and versatile work environments 

that create a supportive setting depending on the respective 

task = activity based working. This includes installing areas for 

co-working and creative zones for collaboration. Typical work environments 

in activity based working are working cafés, libraries, 

lounge areas and intermediate areas. 

Remote Work: This is frequently 

equated with work at home but is a 

quite individual form of mobile and 

location-independent work. Those 

who work remote can deal with 

tasks from any location. The sole 

prerequisite is a functioning Internet 

connection. Communication with 

the firm takes place via telephone, 

video conference and Cloud collaboration. 

Frequently, remote workers 

also require a secure connection to 

the company server via VPN. 

4. 

Crowdworking: Crowdworking 

is a phenomenon 

associated with the digital world 

of work. Company assignments 

are issued by means of online 

platforms to persons scattered 

across the world (the so called 

crowd). The system functions 

completely location-independent 

– the employees are resident 

internationally and work 

independently and digitally 

directly from their location. 

New-Work- 

Dictionary. 


What’s the difference between co- and crowdworking? How does remote 

work function in actual fact? And what do you associate with the word 

scrum? The new world of work has produced a great number of neologisms, 

many of them unknown. We have slashed our way through the jungle of New 

Work terms and compiled the top ten in a New-Work-Dictionary. 


5. 

Hybrid Meeting: Modern 

technical equipment for conference 

and meeting rooms make 

it possible: analogue talks with 

virtual participants. While parts 

of the group meet in situ “in the 

flesh”, other participants can be 

connected via video conference. 

This requires an equipment concept 

compliant with the respective 

communication requirement, also 

modern conferencing technology. 

The basis for a functioning meeting 

experience consists in providing 

collaboration tools such as Teams, 

Slack and Zoom, also sophisticated 

all-in-one hardware, which 

combines room microphone, 

loudspeakers and video camera in 

one device. Supported by up-todate 

displays for visualisation, they 

ensure – even at hybrid meetings 

– optimal visual and audio quality 

for multiple physical and virtual 

participants. 

7. 

6. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the office: 

The digitisation of the world of work is striding forwards at breathtaking speed. 

Systems with artificial intelligence are striking for their capability in autonomous 

solution-finding. In the age of big data, AI can already make decisions that presume 

analytical skills. But it is mainly implemented to do routine tasks or provide automatised 

answers to customer queries. AI thus helps to make processes quicker and 

simpler in routine, everyday tasks. 

Agile Working: Change management is 

struggling increasingly to master processes of 

change that are difficult to plan. The solution 

to these processes of change is called agile 

working. Whoever works in an agile way can 

adapt quickly, react spontaneously and intervene 

flexibly. The prerequisites are flat hierarchies, 

an all-encompassing freedom to make 

decisions, and the reduction of bureaucratic 

hurdles. An important concept in this context 

is design thinking. Here, complex problems 

are solved by means of creative processes. The 

process is based on the work of architects 

and designers. The work process is basically 

intuitive, but can be outlined in five phases. 

At the start a team gets together to define the 

issue at stake. Then the circumstances are observed 

by all participants. These observations 

are gathered together in the third phase. This 

leads directly to the gleaning of ideas and the 

subsequent development and implementation 

of solutions. 

8. 

Work-Life Blending: 

In contrast to the already 

familiar work-life balance, in 

which work and leisure are distinctly 

separated and balanced 

out with each other, work-life 

blending blurs the separating 

borders. Driven by the motor 

of digitisation, people can now 

work everywhere and at all 

times. Especially in knowledge 

work and creative activities, 

many important ideas and 

thoughts occur in tranquil 

moments, thus often in one’s 

leisure time. The workday is 

thus never completely over. On 

the other hand, there are no 

longer any strict working hours. 

Trust-based working hours 

usually take over here. 

9. 

Coworking: 

If New Work was a place, then it 

would probably be a coworking 

space. As the word suggests, it 

refers to collectively used office 

space. Originally, the trend towards 

coworking was conceived as a 

modern and cost-efficient contact 

point for freelancers and start-ups: 

people who do not work directly 

together but might use the reciprocal 

synergies of the collective and 

inspiring work space and simultaneously 

form a community that 

performs the important social tasks 

of cooperation among people. 

10. 

Scrum: 

a term from the sport of rugby. A scrum as we 

all know is a dense mob of players all scrambling 

for the rugby ball; in project management 

it symbolises a crowd in the sense of 

team members closely working together in 

permanent interaction. And more aspects are 

associated with rugby apart from the word 

itself; scrum also makes use of the tried and 

tested tactics of the sport, which demand 

excellent teamwork and have to be carefully 

studied. Models and pioneers in this field are 

IT enterprises. Development processes are 

too complex to deal with strictly according 

to plan in sequential phases. Scrum offers the 

necessary flexibility in order to react to the 

unpredictable in a quick and agile way. 


Showroom 

Does my furniture fit into the room? 

Furniture configured 

with augmented 

reality feature. 

Can you imagine configuring products according to personal taste 

and ideas and subsequently even testing them in your own space? 

You can find this practical feature on the new Wiesner-Hager website. 

Each product can be individually designed with the furniture 

configurator. 

Using the Augmented Reality feature 

the configured product can 

be checked via smartphone or tablet 

directly in your own location. 


Can you imagine? 

1) Select the desired product on the 

main navigation page and scroll down 

on the detail page until you reach the 

configurator. Now you can select 

colours and materials just as you like. 

The changes are immediately visible 

on the product. Turn the article of 

furniture around, zoom in on it – you 

can check it out on all sides and from all 

perspectives. 

2) Your product is ready and configured 

and designed according to your wishes. 

But does the colour really match the 

room? And what does the new swivel 

chair really look like next to the desk? 

Questions that can be clarified simply 

by using the AR feature for smartphones 

and tablets. Simply hold the mobile 

device into the space around you and - 

hey presto! - your self-designed product 

appears. 

3) You have configured your product to 

perfection and tested it in the relevant 

room. All to your complete satisfaction. 

Now, what can you do with your personal 

creation? 

Using the button Send Inquiry directly 

in the configurator, you send a link 

to your configuration in the inquiry 

form. Now you only have to input your 

contact data and a short message about 

your issue, and your query will be sent 

directly to Wiesner-Hager. A personal 

contact partner will quickly get in touch 

with you. 


A place for New Work 

and smart products. 

See what’s going on at 

our new website! 

The link to our 

new website.

contact_magazine_#34_EN

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?