There is a typically telling Pixar moment in the film A Bug’s Life in which an already well-lubricated mosquito goes up to a bar and orders a “Bloody Mary, O Positive.” The barman plonks a droplet of blood down on the bar. The mosquito sinks his proboscis into it, sucks it down in one and falls over. Here’s the clever part. The mosquito doesn’t need a glass because the major force in his life isn’t gravity, but surface tension.
The cleverness of the illustrators lies in them seeing this from the perspective of an insect. Most of us ignore this kind of thing because our day to day lives are dominated by the forces that define not only how we function but also our form.
The link between form, scale and size is one that defines the natural world. The reason insects don’t grow as large as cows is because then they couldn’t be insects. If a gazelle were to evolve into a much larger and heavier creature, its form would change dramatically. If it wanted to maintain its ability to move around quickly, it would need much thicker and shorter legs to support its increased weight. It would become something that looks more like a rhinoceros than a big gazelle. And that is precisely what happened with the common ancestors of gazelles and rhinos.
In Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies, the author Geoffrey West illustrates the point by describing how Godzilla simply couldn’t exist. A 350ft tall monster would collapse, because an animal’s mass cubes with each doubling of its size.
So anyway, you were expecting a review of an office furniture exhibition. And here it is. The Workspace Design Show at the Business Design centre in London works. Its February edition was busy. The venue was full of great people. It had a terrific talks program. The staging of the conference was great. The acoustics were good. Standing room only. People weren’t drifting away out of boredom or because they couldn’t hear a word of it.
Visitors looked happy. The stands looked packed. People were talking. It was impossible to move very far without bumping into somebody you knew. There were some great products, and the exhibitors mostly seemed to be talking about the issues their customers are interested in. It engages people.
The question is why, when so many other events seem to be struggling or vanishing? In large part this is down to the passion and energy of organizers Esha and Charlie Bark-Jones. The venue is good. It is possible to create an acoustically enhanced space for a conference on the main floor in a way that is clearly difficult — if not impossible — in a cavernous shed like the NEC in Birmingham or ExCel in London.
I wish I’d seen more of the products, but I spent most of my time with other visitors and speakers. There were some stand outs though. It was interesting to see German giants Sedus at the show. Its marketing is very much issues-led and that was true here, with a focus on the modish subject of neuroinclusive design. It’s worth checking out their online content and publications if you are a follower of workplace trends in Europe.
Also present were fellow German firm König + Neurath who have had a troubled recent history but seem reinvigorated and recently opened a new showroom in Paris.
Elsewhere, Impact Acoustic was focussed on the still much talked about topic of acoustics (although mercifully there were fewer booths than at recent events). Its Archisonic product is a panel system made from recycled cotton colored by minerals in a closed-loop process. Circularity is a fixation of many manufacturers right now and this offered a perfect example of how this could be marketed alongside other issues.
Bisley continued its reinvention away from its traditional filing systems with a range of new finishes, layered textures and material pairings, alongside the next generation of its BeSmart smart storage, Align desking and accessories.
As well as the manufacturer’s stands, there were a series of installations to bring the show’s theme, Connected Realities, to life. Created by leading architecture and workplace design studios, the installations explored the growing interplay between physical environments, digital systems, materials and people.
Among the installations, the Circular Hub by MCM in partnership with Future Works examined circularity across different product types. Materials were presented from raw to finished states, with natural and synthetic options shown side by side. Contributors included Nested Living, Materials Assemble, Tate, Vitra and Planteria. Visitors took part in practical challenges focused on dismantling and rebuilding furniture, while the stand itself demonstrated a low-waste exhibition approach.
Peldon Rose presented Exhale, a pavilion designed to support listening and reflection. With changes in scent and light, the space had a shifting ambience, hosting both the Sustainability Talks and Occupiers Forum.
The Merge Lounge explored the relationship between craft and technology. Interactive digital interfaces allowed users to adjust lighting and color, illustrating how workplaces can respond to individual needs.
The Workspace Design Talks Lounge, designed by Gensler and Area, had an in-the-round stage, the perfect setting for extraverts but which also seemed to engage the audience.
What next?
With all this success, the obvious question becomes, what next? Well, the organizers have already created a sister event in Amsterdam, so proliferation is one option. The other would be to get bigger, which brings me back to my preamble. Would something like the Workspace Design Show scale? And it is here where things become uncertain.
I recently had a press announcement from the organizers of Orgatec, the biennial office furniture behemoth in Cologne. The gist of this missive was that everything was fine and there was no need to worry. Now, obviously you could take this at face value, or you could apply some context. Bigger events aren’t doing great. And a reassurance of this sort will just add to my suspicion that things are not, in fact, fine.
My first Orgatec was in 1992, and it more or less filled the series of vast halls of the Messe complex. Some of the major German manufacturers of the time would take up pretty much an entire hall themselves, which was probably more about status than a sound commercial decision. The diminution of Orgatec has been evident for years but is particularly marked since the lockdown.
Elsewhere, the organizers of the annual Stockholm Furniture Fair and Stockholm Design Week have already taken the decision that the event should happen every other year. This year would have been the 75th edition of the event but it will return “reimagined” in 2027. At the heart of the event is the Stockholmsmässan, a large traditional exhibition venue and maybe this is part of the problem.
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Three Days of Design which takes place in the summer in Copenhagen seems much more in keeping with the times. It is not about a trip out to some custom-built exhibition hall stuffed with products. It’s about getting together with like-minded people to get to know them, meet old friends, share knowledge and discuss ideas.
Products have to be part of this, of course, and the show won’t survive unless firms support it, but there is a balance to be struck. Clerkenwell Design Week also pulls this trick off and, it too, seems to be doing well, despite the fact that the firms with permanent showrooms in that part of London don’t have to go along with it all to enjoy some of its benefits. It too is primarily an event about connection and ideas.
The instinct to scale is inherent in business thinking, but maybe it is one we should resist in changed times. It could be that many events and other media work – in part — because of their size. And that scaling up may not only change their mass, but also their form. Evolving them into a creature that is endangered, if not yet on the brink of extinction.
Editor’s Note: Mark Eltringham is a U.K.-based publisher, commentator, author, editor, journalist and speaker. In 2013 he launched Workplace Insight, an online publication exploring the relationships between commercial interior design, workplace management, technology, human resources and the wider business world. He went on to launch IN Magazine in 2020 – Europe’s foremost publication exploring working lives, technology, flexible working and workplace management, and in 2022 co-launched Works magazine, the leading dedicated workplace interiors title in the UK and Europe.