It's Not a Fancy Table, But It Wins a Design Award Anyway

NeoCon, one of the world's largest commercial design trade shows, featured desks, workstations and tables that had lots of bells and whistles at its annual exposition this year.

Hydraulics moving them from sitting to standing. Ports for connecting devices to ensure they are integrated within the office. Power packs serving as the engines.

Then there’s the simplicity of Jasper, Indiana-based Versteel’s Sky table, an Editors’ Choice Award winner in the NeoCon category for height-adjustable/training/work tables.

The table – which sells for roughly $1,000-$1,400 depending on width, depth and finish – doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of many sit-stand tables and workstations on the market. It's the analog in a digital world. But it is functional and fits with a growing trend of having flexibility within open office space, particularly for learning areas.

Versteel’s sleek table is raised and lowered by pneumatic pressure, not an electric-driven hydraulic system. Caster wheels make it easy to move around a room as needed. The top is a dry erase board, a feature that facilitates collaboration, said Joe Schwinghammer, Versteel’s director of business development. The table top can be flipped up for everyone to see.

“Our main focus is higher education and corporate training rooms,” Schwinghammer said.

These days, though, the word “training” is being removed from the lexicon and replaced with “learning,” according to Neil Schneider, design director with Chicago-based IA Interior Architects. There’s big demand for “learning environments,” he said at a design seminar during NeoCon.

The demand is driven by companies striving to be agile so they can get whatever they are selling to market quickly. Increasingly, companies have been creating innovation centers within their spaces to foster peer-to-peer learning. Group gather and extract knowledge from each other. “This is how people like working,” Schneider said.

Versteel's award came as part of the “Best of NeoCon.". Editors from industry publications Contract and The McMorrow Reports follow a panel of judges around who choose the best products in a variety of categories. Eileen McMorrow, director of the Best of NeoCon, said the Editors’ Choice tends go to products that got high marks from the judges but not high enough for silver or gold in the category.

Watson Furniture, based in Poulsbo, Washington, won the category with its minimalist Cloud9 desk, which has the option of being raised and lowered electrically. The product, however, is generally pitched as part of a rail system that allows the connected desks to be moved easily into new configurations. Watson won the category with a different product line last year as well.