One of the several drastic changes that COVID-19 brought into our lives was the work from home culture! Gone were the typical office environments that we were so accustomed to, our homes had now become our new office. Setting up a home office is never easy, it has to be a space that inculcates productivity and efficiency, a space that motivates us to get a good long day of work done, and encourages us to channel our energies in the most positive and effective manner possible. Selecting the furniture we incorporate into our home office is extremely important, whether it’s the right desk, an ergonomic and comfortable chair, or even our choice of shelving units – all these designs play a major role in creating a fulfilling and productive work environment. Hence, we’ve curated a collection of highly functional, comfortable, and ergonomic furniture designs that promise to build an ideal home office for you! Michael Soledad’s desk has ample space for all his gadgets whether it’s his PC, laptop, or his iPad. Don’t miss out on the nifty little headphone holder, as well as the laptop stand. Clean, minimal, and wooden, it’s got everything we love in a good desk! It’s a desk setup that we can easily imitate and incorporate in our home office, encouraging productivity and efficiency, and motivating us to gear up for a fulfilling workday! Meet the ‘Chaise Renversée’ – a desk that can also transform into a long chair by the famous French architect Pierre-Louis Gerlier. The literal translation of Chaise Renversée is ‘chair overturned’, I love how simply the French put everything. Since we are all cooped up in our homes, we are constantly finding ways to optimize space. Especially if you live in a city, you are likely to have everyday objects that are modular so that you have a functional space. Our current situation and the need to be flexible within a small space is exactly what inspired Gerlier to design the Chaise Renversée. It is the perfect blend of work from home and Netflix from home into one piece of modern furniture, it provides a stable table area to work and can then transform into the ‘Chaise Lounge’ when you want to relax. Fitwork’s design sort of embodies a no-excuse mentality to being fit. Whether it’s the excuse of ‘being too busy’, or of ‘not wanting to go all the way to the gym’, Fitwork combats it by bringing the gym not just to your house, but to your workspace. Designed as a product to let you work and work out at the same time, this crazy hybrid of a desk-chair and treadmill keeps your legs active while you work. Whether you’re sitting in front of a laptop or standing in front of one, it’s the sedentary lifestyle that Fitwork tackles. The setup (which is sure to grab a few eyeballs) comes with an office chair attached to a treadmill underneath, and an elliptical in front. Coupled with an elevating desk, the Fitwork allows you to keep the lower half of your body active while you work, giving you cardio as well as keeping your spine engaged, whether you’re sitting or standing while working. The Soul Seat helps you sit in a neutral posture that is effortless and comfortable. The springs on the elevated perch tilt the pelvis forward, open the hips and help align the spine. You can sit in several positions if crossing legs isn’t comfortable for you, the chair enables you to switch between multiple positions frequently keeping your body engaged and blood flowing. For some, this may also alleviate neck and back pain! The height of both levels can be adjusted to suit your workspace setup. I know there were many comments from our Instagram audience about it missing a backrest and while I don’t think it causes harm if you sit without one (people meditate and work in this very posture for hours in Asian countries), I do think having an option of a detachable backrest can help those who are just starting to work on their posture ease into it. It is about having that choice which opens up many more people to use the Soul Seat, however, there are countless reviews that mention it being comfortable as it is so it is a great design but it does come down to personal preference. Kerstin Pfleger’s multifunctional furniture shape-shifts to accommodate a work-from-home lifestyle. By day, it’s a desk-space for work, and by night, it transforms into a bed for two. How does it do it? By using a clever set of mechanisms that compress the bed right into the desk’s storage units! Titled the Work/Sleep Balance, this morphing piece of home decor is ideal for tiny apartments, serving two purposes within a small footprint. The desktop is large enough to accommodate most of your work accouterments, while the cabinet on the side features a collapsible tri-axial bed frame that opens up to become a base for the mattress, which rolls right up and slides into a compartment in the desk’s back. The transformation takes around 2-3 minutes, allowing you to efficiently use your space to work during the day, and catch some shut-eye during the night! The Tripod Standing Desk is an adjustable, portable, and multifunctional desk designed specifically to confront the restlessness and inconvenience that too often accompanies working from home. The desk itself is carved from Baltic birch and its supplementary, multifunctional tripod is constructed from aircraft-grade aluminum. The Tripod Standing Desk comes with its tabletop in either Baltic birch, walnut, black, or white, a multifunctional tripod and carrying case, a quick-release plate, and finally, two non-scratch laptop stops for angled working. Once the standing desk’s preferred height, anywhere between 1.8 and 4.8 feet, and angle, which can rest at an incline or lay flat, is chosen then users will only have to tighten the tripod’s quick-release clamps like they would with a typical tripod used to mount cameras. Additionally, the Tripod Standing Desk is portable and only weighs 4.5 pounds, making it easy to work in tight spaces while traveling or changing rooms. Tai Matlin and Taiwon Choi of Fellowes have designed an office chair with a hanging seating position that follows the body movements. The hanging seat ensures maximum comfort for the spine, hips, and lower limbs at all times – no matter how long you’ve been sitting! The unique chair design with patented Omni-Kinetic Suspension Technology for micro-body movement in multiple directions prevents fatigue during long hours of sitting. Keeping in mind the extended working hours Elea chair has a contoured design to support natural spine alignment and lumbar positioning which all goes well for long-term health benefits. The chair also boasts adjustable tension and balanced support which most of the office chairs simply don’t have. Other than that a lot of thought has been put into the designing of every single little detail of this chair which will leave nothing to complaining. Balconies are only used for drying clothes, and probably for the odd Romeo Juliet scene if you have an interesting love-life. Other than that, no one really uses them, even though they overlook the city and can have really breath-taking views sometimes. The Balkonzept desk fits onto any balcony, making the wonderful cityscape either your workplace or a setting for a beautiful lunch/dinner date. Available in wonderfully fresh colors, it’s sturdy enough to take the weight of a laptop, dining set, or a few potted plants. It uses a counter-balancing area which makes a great mini-garden, or even a book-case or bottle-rack. The makeshift balcony desk is just perfect for people bored of being stuck in the boring office workspace. Using the balcony, and the city’s landscape, the Balkonzept makes for a rather inspiring workplace. The Altwork desk claims to be the ultimate in productivity and ergonomics….and I agree, I have never seen a desk so flexible that it is practically a gymnast who also cares about your posture. This desk encourages productivity by molding itself to any position that you feel your best in. I personally love to stand and work but I don’t like being stuck in the same place, I work best when I move around and this desk allows me the freedom to do both! There is a demographic that may have health problems which makes it hard for them to sit at a conventional desk and chair in an office. This causes them to lose out on many job opportunities that they might excel at simply because there wasn’t a solution for “How will they sit in the office?” but, thankfully, technology today has given us the ability to work from anywhere and this desk’s shape-shifting form makes it a part of the inclusive design world which caters to the needs of differently-abled. Productivity and health is a universal right. This desk by Yeg Design Studio is called Clock and I want you to keep that in mind for the rest of this story. Clock was designed to be compact and fit in the growing trend of smaller living spaces. The designer wanted to create something that seamlessly blended into our workdays (especially when working from home!) without disrupting our office hours or eating habits. The hybrid station converts food waste into energy to power itself wirelessly but also includes the systems to be plugged into a wall if needed. It is an innovative product that combines technology and functionality to sustainably manage waste and encourage more people to shift to natural/renewable energy sources.