While the opening up of workspaces has sparked interactions and enhanced communication among individuals, it has also brought forth an array of unregulated and occasionally unsettling stimuli.

+Halle brings together designers and experts in academia to kick off each year’s Annual Briefing. For Annual Briefing #3, we centered around the theme of “Producing”. Together with +Halle, the design and architecture studio BIG architects and design studio Raw Edges, and experts in communal spaces, we investigated ways for furniture to induce the feeling of being and being able to be productive.

This annual briefing aimed to reclaim a sense of concentration and productivity while still allowing individuals to remain connected to their environment. Our objective was to investigate whether furniture could empower individuals to determine their desired level of privacy at any given time, whether it be for a brief task or an extended activity.

During the annual briefing on producing, we had long discussions of emerging behaviours in spatial comfort. For instance, we had architectural PhD candidate Andrew Khoudi compare data of preferred seats in the Dokk1 library and learnt that the seat with the back to the wall, facing outwards, was the most popular. It is by looking at this kind of insight, we can debate the impact of architectural installations, and hopefully enhance them through interventions like Cubicle.

Getting things done in public environments often calls for a hideout, a place where you feel comfortable enough to relax and let your mind flow for a couple of hours. Cubicle is a spatial installation that challenges people’s perception of concentration and the space that surrounds them. By inviting you into a wooden corner for a prolonged period, you find yourself in a familiar frame, not far from that of a compartment seat on a train, where you are alone with your thoughts for a while, right there in the open. 

With inspiration from Swedish Architect Gunnar Asplund’s fixed wooden benches built for the Woodland chapel in 1935, we wanted to bring in a fresh, light, elegant but still utilitarian, almost brutalist take on a tall bench. With bent plywood and sturdy wall as legs, the form language is very much that of an architectural one. And with that, the design studio hopes that the Cubicle collection can be used in a variety of settings, sparking a wider public conversation about focus gained.

‘Throughout, we have worked towards making Cubicle durable and light, however, that urge of personalisation has grown upon us: the touch of a dimmed soft light, a neat place to charge your laptop and space generous enough for your drinks and snacks all signals qualitative personal time. Our ambition was always about meeting the need for sitting comfortably,’ — John Löfgren Co-Founder Form Us With Love.