Good Thinking

Space-saving Ergon Desk adapts to everyone

Space-saving Ergon Desk adapts to everyone
The Ergon Desk is designed to maximize collaboration, along with ergonomics
The Ergon Desk is designed to maximize collaboration, along with ergonomics
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The Ergon Desk is designed to maximize collaboration, along with ergonomics
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The Ergon Desk is designed to maximize collaboration, along with ergonomics
The 180-degree wrap-around desktop design of the stations is also claimed to save office space, with one six-station Ergon Desk reportedly occupying over 30 percent less floor space than the equivalent employee-number of traditional desks
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The 180-degree wrap-around desktop design of the stations is also claimed to save office space, with one six-station Ergon Desk reportedly occupying over 30 percent less floor space than the equivalent employee-number of traditional desks

There are now plenty of standing desks for buyers to choose from, along with desks that allow users to switch between sitting and standing. The Ergon Desk, however, takes things a step farther. It's a six-person unit designed to facilitate teamwork, and it consists of individual sit/stand stations that adapt to the ergonomic needs of individual users.

Designed by Madrid-based Pynk Systems, the Ergon Desk features touchscreen controls at each station, allowing users to set parameters such as the desktop height and the angle of their computer platform. Once they have things set to their liking, the desk's software uses sensors to monitor their behaviour throughout the day, periodically suggesting that they switch from sitting to standing (or vice-versa), or that they even take a break from the desk altogether.

Because multiple employees might end up using the same station, the system can also remember individual user settings. Whenever one user takes over a station from someone else, they just log in, and the station will automatically revert to their pre-established setup. Due to the fact that multiple Ergon Desks in one room are interconnected, it's even possible to call up those same settings at another desk.

The 180-degree wrap-around desktop design of the stations is also claimed to save office space, with one six-station Ergon Desk reportedly occupying over 30 percent less floor space than the equivalent employee-number of traditional desks
The 180-degree wrap-around desktop design of the stations is also claimed to save office space, with one six-station Ergon Desk reportedly occupying over 30 percent less floor space than the equivalent employee-number of traditional desks

Teamwork is fostered by having everyone facing in towards one another, plus there's an Agile Meeting mode that automatically sets all the stations to the same height, so everyone's on the same level. The 180-degree wrap-around desktop design of the stations is also claimed to save office space, with one six-station desk reportedly occupying over 30 percent less floor space than the equivalent employee-number of traditional desks.

The Ergon Desk was developed through the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid's Science Park Business Incubator, and can be seen in use in the video below.

Sources: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Ergon Desk

Ergon Desk

3 comments
3 comments
pcdewolff
Any images with a 19" inch monitor instead of the un-ergonomic laptop screens? And then also with a mouse. It seems to small for that.
Peter Kelly
Good luck to them, but I've rarely seen such an over-engineered solution to a problem that doesn't exist!
Apart from the fact that most of the difficulty with people moving workstations revolves around their specific paper and tool needs, rather than the space, office desks are already outrageously expensive relative to what you get; I dread to think how much a set up like this would cost. Fine if you are Apple, or Google, or a Bank, but a huge waste of money for anyone else.
Finally, the operation would have to be extraordinarily robust and foolproof, knowing how careless most people are.
I won't even go into the likelihood of timewasting while the average idiot plays with the settings every 5 minutes...
Rann Xeroxx
I work in the Office furniture business (in IT) and when I look at that solution, that really does not look good at all. There looks to be hardly any options to modify it to suit any particular office space or business needs, it gives very little in the way of work space for the individuals, if these are permanent workstations it gives no room for storage, etc.
The thing to remember is that the office space you need now may not be the office space you need tomorrow. The "open bench" concept is trending right now but typically rectangular benches work best in most spaces and can be moved as teams and project teams reconfigure. Its also easier to add storage and other mods to a rectangular worksurface.