Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Numerous Purposes To Select Office Furniture

By Anna Gillard


For as long as there has been paperwork, there has been the need for offices and staff. To enable the workers to do their job, office furniture has been required. Those original work rooms had fixed desks and chairs, nothing adjustable. So, one employee would find them selfs at an optimum working height, whereas others wouldn't. Before the invention of the printing press, any form of book or literature would have had to have been copied by hand. It would be safe to assume that this would have been conducted at some form of desk. So desks, in one form or another, have been round for a long time.

Maybe the greatest advances in office furniture have come about with chairs and desks. As far back as the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, innovations in furniture proved to be popular exhibits. The Exposition featured new filing systems and fancy roll top desks.

Roll top desks were a good design, as with the drawers and pigeon holes paperwork, inks and pens could all be stored and kept in a convenient location. They proved impractical with the invention of the typewriter though, as there was nowhere for the typewriter to be placed. More and more agencies were coming into being, and so there was an increase in the number of staff.

The average worker would be employed for six days a week, often working up to sixty hours per week. Anyone wishing to study such skills can find an increasing number of places offering this specialized training. With the increase of the number of white collar workers, and the ever increasing number of jobs, this also meant that an ever increasing number of hours were spent by these individuals sitting at desks conducting numerous different tasks.

This led to the growing field of Ergonomics. This is defined as the optimization of the interface between the person and the environment, or the equipment they use on a regular basis. Ergonomics has played a huge role in the design of space and furniture in recent years.

You might be surprised to learn the identity of an early innovator of the chair, it was Charles Darwin. To enable him to view his specimens more easily, he attached wheels to the legs of his chair in his study. The chair has continued to evolve, with the main criterion being the comfort of the occupant. An early model included a swivel seat on castors.

These basic chairs were similar to those we now see every day. Although modern office furniture is even more adjustable. The thought being that although the worker is seated for longer, they are working more efficiently, and are therefore more productive. Working in this fashion also reduces the chance of a Repetitive Strain Injury.




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