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The Sutton Flip table is a unique design combining high capacity cable management with complete mobile flexibility in one of the largest flip top tables available, up to 3000mm x 1500mm in one piece. Sutton's high capacity cable managed base does not compromise its aesthetic and is specified to suit high profile client facing areas as well as less formal spaces, offering complete flexibility and enabling the user to quickly change the use of the space it occupies. Most importantly the Sutton flip is uniquely designed to not only minimise waste, using standard section steel and standard size core board, but also to encourage re-use at the end of its life. Each component has been designed to be connected independently so that re-finishing both the base and table top is possible day two. The Sutton Flip leg has been designed to house a high capacity of cable management whilst remaining slim and elegant. The large but discrete door to the base eliminates the problems that often face AV contractors when they come to install their equipment by maximising the space they have, not only when first fitting but also for maintenance. The internal space of the base is maximised to future proof additional technology that may be required. The Sutton flip table has had the top weight issue designed out by the use of gas loaded actuators, despite the weight of the large top, the user is able to easily flip it up or down. As with all Workbench product the Sutton Flip meets our 'Designed by us, tailored by you' aspiration, allowing the client to specify the details, materiality and finish to suit their specific project.

An exciting opportunity to join our design team in Clerkenwell for a recent graduate, working in a fast paced company specialising in high-end corporate furniture and joinery. - Skilled in AutoCAD, Solidworks, Keyshot & Adobe Suite. - To be knowledgeable in furniture materials and construction techniques with experience in creating manufacturing drawings and liaising with various workshops - Project management, site meetings, client liaison and assisting the sales team will also be encompassed within the role. - All applicants to have BA or BSc Honours within Furniture/Product/Industrial Design and have relevant industry experience. To apply, please send your portfolio, CV and covering letter to rob@workbenchltd.co.uk

Biophilic design - This continues to dominate interior design for 2022. We have all become used to the outdoors over the last 18 months and for much of that time meetings outside were the way forward, so it is no surprise that biophilic design is resurgent. Maintaining office plants has been tricky for many companies as they deal with home working and fewer people in the office, but there are plenty of artificial or non-living options to get around that. Waves and curves - Maybe this is also a post pandemic reaction to the regimented following of rules and keeping in line. In 2022 curves, waves and general irregular shapes are making their way into not only office spaces but our homes as well. Fluting - This detail is one of the most popular that we are seeing applied to furniture, prevalent in the 1930’s art deco design, fluting has become a favoured detail in interiors. Fluting is one of the more simple ways to add texture to furniture. Workshops and factories have increasingly sophisticated CNC machines which allow this feature to now be cost effective to produce. Advances in cutting and working other materials such as stone, technical stone and Corian mean that fluting details are not just limited to timbers. Colours - We always have one eye on Arpa laminate in particular the Fenix range when it comes to predicting colour trends. The Fenix Verde Comodoro has made the top spot. This colour complements the RAL 2022 colours this year, with a palette that reflects the colourways we are starting to see on mood boards. Hague blue by Farrow and Ball trailblazed these calm colours with historcal undertones. The odd man out is Very Peri (purple) as the colour of the year from Pantone 🤔…. we are not seeing much of that being specified at the moment, but as we know a year is a long time in office design so we will see what 2022 brings and keep you posted! Patterns - Earth inspired patterns, nature and pastel colours. This is definitely the work from home influence spilling into our office space. We need to feel at home at work, cushions, curtains, art and ceramics are all embracing colours and patterns this year. Measure it - Less green washing more green wishing. 2022 is the year to start counting your carbon. The task can seem overwhelming but now is the time start. Companies are taking the first steps and sensibly starting small, counting what they know they can measure now whilst working out how to count the more difficult bits. It is going to be the fastest way for a company to calculate its carbon foot print so that it can start a reduction plan and begin the journey to Net Zero. As our collective knowlege grows and legislation improves, defined carbon counting will be a dominating trend and topic for years to come. Which Workbench applaud.

Workbench recently worked with Apres to provide meeting room tables for a leading asset management company in Mayfair. Workbench produced a tailored version of our Eve table with a standard black leg finish, and for the main conference table a special bronze powder coated leg. The table tops were made in Fenix with a solid maple edge stained black to give a sleek contemporary appearance. All the tables have fully integrated AV and IT interfaces. To complete the suite Workbench also designed a bespoke upholstered bench with matching bronze leg to perfectly compliment the tables. Designed by us, tailored by you.

They say the first step is the most important. SME’s looking to take that first step measuring their carbon footprint often don’t know where to start, have no road map, or even a pair of shoes in place to take that step. Couple that with the loud rhetoric and finger pointing at businesses that they are all failing the planet and SME’s can be left feeling overwhelmed by the task. Even if they do manage to find a start line, a map and some shoes would it even make a dent in the enormity of the issue? Yes it would make a dent! Collectively SME’s are enormous. At the start of 2021 there were over 5.5 million SME’s in the UK ( 0-49 employees.) SMEs account for three fifths of the employment and around half of the turnover in the UK private sector. If SME’s all measured their carbon footprint, introduced reduction targets and in the meantime off set their carbon it would be a massive shift in the UKs carbon footprint. The problem for most SME’s is getting to the start line, finding a map and putting on the right shoes. When Workbench started to define its footprint in 2020, it was tough to find independent information. First port of call was The Carbon Trust, who were very communicative but unable to help us due to our size and their workload. A Google search produced many companies that offered various foot printing products but without any knowledge of the process or any independent information it was difficult to work out how to assess the quality of those services. Fortunately ISOQAR the certification body for the Workbench ISO14001 accreditation were able to assist. We were able to start a dialogue with a company that work with the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative and gave independent advice. Thier team also specialised in carbon footprinting for SME’s! We were on the start line with a SAT NAV and new trainers. Defining Scope 1,2 and 3 is a big task for any company but SME’s are normally agile and have good sight of the information that needs to be measured. It is daunting but our advice is, JUST TAKE THAT FIRST STEP. It has been a 14 month journey for us that has highlighted many interesting observations about our supply chain as well as starting collaborative initiatives going forward. Workbench is the first UK office furniture company to be listed on the United Nations Climate Neutral Now website, our carbon footprint audit has been certified by a 3rd party. You can read more about our journey, our carbon neutrality and our reduction targets on the Workbench Climate Neutral webpage. Measuring our footprint and our listing on the United Nation Climate Neutral Now initiative is just the first step….new trainers please!👟

Workbench Tailored Collections Horsham / Games Industry Workbench recently partnered with Oktra to design and manufacture tables and credenzas for a suite of meeting rooms at a leading Games Industry company. The emphasis was to provide a non-corporate, rustic environment. The rectangular A-STAR table was selected to meet this requirement, with lino tops in Forbo ’Smokey Blue’ and a polished plywood edge. The central insert to the table with cable access panels is finished in Egger 'Santa-Fe' Oak laminate and accommodates Crestron units. The table is supported on A-STAR steel bases finished in a black powder coat. Burnt orange leather chairs compliment the table to give a carefully tailored solution that perfectly matches the organic nature of the building interior. Workbench Tailored Collections - For more information visit our A-STAR page.

Inspirational furniture that tells a story... The oak for this table comes from a tree planted by Lippold Friedemann von Bredow, Erbherr auf Haage und Retzow, Havelland in 1855. It was uprooted on 30th March 2015 during Hurricane Niklas. The fallen tree was cut into timber and seasoned for four years at a local sawmill. Workbench were asked to design and fabricate a bespoke table for the London Office of an Investment Management Company. We transported the boards from Germany to our UK workshop, cutting to useable sizes and working out how best to join the boards whilst setting out the text for engraving a poem into the surface. Herr Von Ribbeck im Havelland is a beloved German literary ballad written by Theodor Fontane in 1889. It tells the story of the generous and gentle Squire von Ribbeck who would gift pears to passing children from his pear trees. He knows his son and heir to be a scrooge who will stop this benevolence so he asks that when he dies he is to be buried with a pear. He does this in the knowledge that the pear tree which grows from his grave will continue to provide free pears to the children as they pass.

Wow we have missed this! Great to step way from our desks, into our glad rags and catch up with the everyone in our brilliant industry. Congratulations to all the finalists and especially to the winners at Mix Interior magasine Mixolgy South.

Workbench is hosting breakfast talks on the 9th and 10th September 9am -9.30 . If you are new to the industry or just want to refresh your memory we will be giving a short seminar on specifying veneers, laminates and glass. We will be joined by Arpa UK manufacturers of FENIX and GX Glass to discuss applications, tolerances, environmental impact and debunk some of the abbreviations you might find on tenders. There are limited places so if you would like to join us for breakfast please contact Heather@workbenchltd.co.uk.

Contrasting materials in complimentary colours. We @workbench recently completed a project where a palette of complimentary colours were specified for table tops but in different materials. Using different materials on a table top needs consideration. Workbench collaborated with ID:SR and The Furniture Practice detailing a client facing meeting suite with a combination of Fenix laminate, bronze inlay, Corian solid surface and timber veneer. All of these materials move and react to heat and moisture in a different way. Metal inlays in table tops are notoriously temperamental. @Workbench we prefer a mechanical fix detail if actual metal inlays or lipping are used, but a great alternative to this is the specification of a metal laminate. Nearly all of the main laminate manufacturers have metal decorative laminates in their collection that have a very good likeness to the material they replicate. If laid correctly it is very difficult to see the difference from the real deal. The advantage of a metal laminate is that it is much more stable and elimates the movement issue often experienced with metal enabling us to realise our clients vision and remove any potential movement issues in the future. Designed by us, tailored by you.

It has long been the case that corporate furniture demands the inclusion of technology. Over the past year the corporate furniture market has had to leap at warp speed to make sure that technology, and most importantly communications technology, is accessible for teams wherever they may be working. So often throughout history, moments of intense difficulty or crisis have been accompanied by technology and innovation forging ahead at a relentless pace. As we see offices swing back into operation, albeit in a more fluid way, the seamless integration of technology into our office spaces and homes, and our ability as designers to meet these demands, will be ever more critical. Even the most exclusive interiors are having to accept this requirement. @Workbench we believe this doesn't mean that you have to ruin your statement boardroom table with reluctantly installed comms equipment, or for that matter clutter the clean lines of your touchdown collaboration space with the look of a 1980’s dealer desk, because at the same time as the requirement has moved on, so has the technology. Companies like Arthur Holm, Crestron and Office Electrics to name a few, have all developed their product ranges to meet this demand, which means we @Workbench are continually developing furniture that can provide the latest technology driven solutions, without driving out your creative aspiration.

We could argue that we have "done time” over the past year, and as return to work plans start to be confirmed we now need to focus on SPACE. We are all used to talking about office SPACE, but as we make plans to head back to the office we have been talking to clients about SPACE and Social D i s t a n c i n g. Effective use of SPACE is perhaps already the biggest consideration in the workplace, and maybe for too long we have squeezed too many people into the SPACE we have available, especially in city offices. The observation seems to be that although more people will be working from home, the square foot of office SPACE won't change as those that are in the office will be more generously accommodated in line with new health and well being protocols. Communal open SPACE and informal meeting areas within buildings where colleagues can meet and collaborate are already very much at the forefront of office design, and post lockdown they will be top of the list. Creating a SPACE that delivers openness both physically and aesthetically is generating some beautiful designs that are genuinely revolutionising the workplace for the better. Reconnecting with nature in the working environment, quick change furniture, multifunctional furniture and biophilic installations are all influencing the solutions that we @workbenchltd are designing for our clients, and we are not alone. The exciting new Animate charge anywhere products from OE Electrics are trailblazing the options for flexible working, and Innerspace Cheshire continue to deliver innovative natural finishes that bring a some of that great outdoors indoors, enabling interior designers to create the SPACE we all need.