Teknion previews Marketplace - Office Exhibition 2008
Teknion Corporation (TSX:TKN) announced that it is previewing its new Marketplace™ worktable at the Office Exhibition in Dubai, UAE February 4 -6th 2008. Marketplace reinvents the worktable, achieving an uninterrupted and unsupported span up to 20 feet that fosters creativity and collaboration in today’s team-based office environment.
"I was in a traffic jam and, looking up, I noticed this triangular truss extending over six lanes of highway," says Carl Gustav Magnusson, an internationally renowned industrial designer and who, with Teknion’s in-house design department, created Marketplace. "I then began thinking of ways that I might adapt this technology to office furniture. Marketplace is the result.
"By nature, teamwork and collaborative environments require less space," continues Magnusson. "However, the table products on the market today have ignored the human aspects of work – personalization of space, storage and some privacy. With Marketplace, we have cleverly incorporated new ways of providing storage, privacy and comfort. Simply put, Marketplace is a more human approach to smaller spaces."
With a minimum number of parts, Marketplace is easy to specify, installs quickly and reduces inventory and costs. The worktable is designed around a lightweight triangular truss that creates open spans of up to 20 feet – the longest free span in the industry – while accommodating eight to 10 people comfortably. Marketplace is ideal for downtown offices with escalating real estate costs.
Marketplace was designed to accommodate employees that work in open spaces in close proximity to team members – financial traders and management consultants, multi-disciplinary teams, architects, designers and other creative professions – but incorporates various accessories and options that extend its capabilities and applications.
Marketplace incorporates shelves for paper management and personal items, tackable surfaces and accessories. A canopy extending the full length of the table and resembling those used in traditional European outdoor marketplaces defines space, provides warm, glare-free light and way-finding. The truss handles wire management needs and can be wired and rewired with ease, making Marketplace well-suited for IT-intensive applications.
"Marketplace is a visually dramatic response for open collaborative work groups," explains Steve Delfino, Director of Marketing. "Visibly and functionally different, Marketplace offers significant advantages over other competitive worktable products. Generous wire management capabilities make it ideal for technologically intense applications. With a limited number of parts, Marketplace assembles quickly and can then be easily modified. A minimal parts inventory and simplified infrastructure for power and data distribution reduce costs. In addition, Marketplace finishes and edge options coordinate with other Teknion products to create visual harmony throughout the office."
Marketplace is one of three new products that Teknion will be featuring at showroom #1048 during NeoCon that enable collaboration in the evolving workspace, yet still recognize the needs of the individual. Teknion will also be showing its District collection of cabinets, desks, walls and windows that reinterprets office furniture, and the Optos full-height glass wall system that provides a refined design aesthetic, flexible leveling tolerance and supports LEED accreditation.
