Fly me to the moon. Think the office furniture industry is huge? No way. Dallas Kasaboski, consultant at Northern Sky Research says contracts for lunar missions through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program will have more than doubled from 125 to more than 250 over the next decade. The firm expects business on and servicing the moon to become a $105 billion industry by 2032.

Bottom line: No way we can grow the contract furniture industry to $105 billion by 2032, unless we start delivering millions of chairs and desks to space - and beyond. Likelihood of achieving that? One out of 10 billion.

Office owners and employers nationwide have more months of uncertainty ahead as an expected recession and the well-worn dynamics of a downturn combine with the vagaries and unpredictability of the return-to-office movement.

Recessions usually mean more power for employers as workers worry about their jobs, which could create leverage for getting people back to the office instead of serving as a salary governor as in downturns past. But in a post-Covid world, nothing is that simple.

Real estate players who ignore net zero are putting their capital — not to mention the planet — at risk, says Allwork.Space.

Pension funds based in the U.S. and Canada are unwinding their bets on office buildings and retail as they reckon with the potential for big value declines.

North American public pension funds manage more than $6T, allocating almost 9% of that amount to real estate. Office has long been the preferred real estate asset class for these funds, but its share of investment has rapidly dwindled — office holdings now account for 23% of private real estate funds' holdings, down 11% from three years ago, according to National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries data reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The BIOPHILIC OFFICE by COLECRAFT COMMERCIAL FURNISHINGS

Most office employees work 70-90 percent of daylight time inside a building. Studies have demonstrated that a nature-based design that provides interaction with the natural environment is a very effective way to improve mood, efficiency and overall job satisfaction. 

Biophilic office and furniture design is a philosophy that uses natural materials and plants in the design of the office environment. Biophilic design research has indicated that humans have an innate connection with the natural world and that exposure to the natural world is therefore important for human well-being.  Biophilic design is increasingly being used to boost well-being by creating a connection with nature through the use of elements like daylight, plants, water, and exposed wood. These elements have been attributed to positive outcomes in humans—from reducing stress to boosting productivity. A Biophilic office environment also encourages employees who have been working from home to return to the office.

At Colecraft we work with your design team to develop the office furniture that meets your total design intent including adding elements of Biophilic design into the furniture.  Use of natural materials such as wood and greenery with lighting tastefully introduced into the design, help to personalize the design as unique and meet your goal of achieving a Biophilic environment. From Reception Desk through conference rooms and office desking our finely crafted furniture makes an uncompromising statement about your values and that of your company.

Colecraft Commercial Furnishings has been creating and building distinctive conferencing solutions at its manufacturing headquarters in Jamestown New York since 2003.   Colecraft develops initial design concepts and customizes each build to meet a client’s specific “Design intent”. Every piece of furniture, made by the artisans at Colecraft is customized in style, size, color, finish and technology integration.

Merging state-of-the-art design, engineering, and CNC technology with highly skilled artisans and traditional craftsmanship, Colecraft provides furniture for many of the nation’s leading businesses, institutions and universities. The company’s tag line is “The Art of Detail” and the products delivered are masterpieces in terms of quality, form, function and “Detail”.

Colecraft’s product design focus is centered functionally on Executive Office Furniture including Reception Areas, Conference Room Furniture, Deking as well as Custom Library, Courtroom, Institutional and Educational Furniture.  Resimercial, Biophilic and Executive WFH designs are also part Colecraft’s design acumen.  Colecraft’s market segments includes business, education, healthcare , hospitality and luxury automotive showrooms.  The company specializes in producing lot quantities of one to one-hundred.

Colecraft sells and distributes its furniture through A grade commercial contract dealer partners throughout the United States. For more information about Colecraft Commercial Furnishings visit www.colecraftcf.com.

Even as rents languish and vacancy rates remain high in much of the office market, the creme de la creme in commercial is still able to command top tier rents and has limited availability.

Last week’s announcement of the biggest office deal of the year was welcome news for New York City’s office market, which has been battered by high availability and low occupancy.

Leases like KPMG's 15-year commitment in Manhattan West — the search for which kicked off in 2018, the company said — are a sign more large corporations are finally making decisions about how they want their offices to look long-term, and what it means for the size of their spaces, industry.

Sanjeev Patel and Shannon Robinson of Duda|Paine explore creating truly sustainable workplaces to attract people back to the office.

As asynchronous work continues to veer toward the norm for many US companies, corporate real estate executives are struggling to nail down their space needs, making leasing increasingly challenging for the office sector.

“A particularly challenging pain point is the discrepancy between how employees say they work in the office and what building and utilization data shows,” says Tony Josipovic, JLL Global Product Management executive director in a new post. “Getting a true benchmark is already challenging and it’s a must have – think of it as a table-stakes.”

Safety, health and wellbeing at work is, without question, the most important of all responsibilities facing those who employ others. It can be a matter of life and death and deserves to be front and center of any debate on work as it is performed today as well as the future of work. That it isn’t in the public conscience in the same way as, say, climate change has long been the challenge facing those of us who work in the health and safety profession and who strive to make workplaces healthier and safer. Yet, nearly 2.8 million people are estimated to lose their lives each year to avoidable, unnecessary work-related injuries or illness. That is a conservative estimate, in my view, and many, many millions more suffer serious, often life-changing injuries or ill health at work.

Akers Business Solutions is one of the largest Manufacturer Representative firms in the northeast.  The A&D Account Executive role, we are embarking on an effort to grow revenue to new heights by strengthening the relationships with the architects and designers while working with Office Furniture dealers, independent dealers, end users, mega channel, new accounts and verticals.