by Sarah Anderson

You are brilliant. You are constantly evolving. You are sharpening your skills, flooding your mind with new information and improving your output every day, and you need office furniture that evolves as quickly as you do. From standing desks to ball chairs, ergonomics has long been the center of furniture designed to help you perform your best in the office.

Thor Sorensen, Vice President of Design Quest, gives insight into some of the most exciting developments sweeping the industry.

Self-Healing Desk Tops

No longer an inactive object, desktops now mirror some of our favorite superheroes and regenerate after sparring with sharp desktop objects.

Sorensen noted this as one of the more unusual developments he’s seen recently.

“Fenix laminated tops give you two characteristics you don't normally get with a laminate,” he explained. “One: If you get scratches they can be healed. Two: They don't have the glassy, plastic finish that most have. It’s more like slate —they have a silky, natural surface because their surface is created using a nanotechnology.”

Health-Focused Furniture

Sorensen brings to light a strong point about furniture and technology: today’s shiny, new pieces that incorporate technological adaptability will be tomorrow’s trash.

“Today, USB and wireless charging are being added to all sorts of things,” he said. “However, I fully expect them to be obsolete quite soon.” Instead, he sees a future of furniture that plays an active role in facilitating healthy living.

“The technology that excites me is the positive health furniture: sit-to-stand desks, chairs that respond to the body, and adapt to the user, or engage your muscles,” he said.

Stand and Slay

“There is more research reported about the benefits of standing almost every day,”  Sorenson said. “You burn more calories, loosen joints, improve posture, strengthen core muscles, and improve blood flow.”

Enter the adjustable desk that gives you the option to split with your sitting ways and embrace a more active desk job. Sorensen offered his recipe for success.

“My routine is to always put my desk up to standing position before I leave for the day,” he revealed. “Then I start standing when I return to the office for as long as I want to. Some days that is all day, and others maybe only 20 minutes.”

The Future of Comfort

An avid supporter of timeless luxury, Sorensen pointed out that good furniture has a much longer lifespan than most of the gadgets we see today. Something that won’t go out of style any time soon? Comfort. Sorensen suggests finding pieces that are technologically advanced in ways that will always improve your life.

“The way a company makes a recliner and molds in comfort zones is also technology," he mused. “That is something that will be there for the entire life of the furniture piece.”