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NEW YORK – You probably wouldn't want to put Dutch designer Hella Jongerius in the same room with the folks who make the machines that most people use at home and work.
"Why do computers always look so 'high-tech' and cold?" Jongerius said. "The computer doesn't have to be about punishment."
Jongerius is one of six designers commissioned by New York's Museum of Modern Art to create custom-built models of new tools and environments for "Workspheres," an exhibition of innovative workplace products, furniture, and interior design that opened Thursday.
Designers increasingly play the role of mediators between new technologies and consumers, and the show at MoMa – which runs through April 22 – displays a wide range of innovations over the past half-century.
Products range from analog items as Bic ballpoint pens, whose ergonomic form made waves in 1950, to futuristic devices such as the chic, silver neckpiece – complete with a miniature Web-ready computer, keyboard, and telephone sewn into its wool fabric – being developed by France Telecom.
Jongerius created "My Soft Office," turning an extra-long, adjustable bed into a cozy workspace by inserting IBM computer screens into the mattress and embedding a keyboard, a mouse, and loudspeakers into pillows.
"Work has become transportable and ubiquitous, almost a state of mind," said Paola Antonelli, MoMA's curator of architecture and design. "The title of the exhibition comes from the concept of the individual workspace as a halo."
The show is much more than a showcase for existing products and in-progress R&D projects, however.
About half of the designers chose to work with the existing idea of the cubicle rather than venture into the realm of, say, wearable computing – perhaps a sign that PC makers need not panic about the workstation as a dying breed.
LOT/EK, the popular New York architecture firm known for its use of recycled materials, created an "Inspiro-tainer" – a reconfigured airplane cargo container fitted on casters and padded with soundproof foam.
The unit, which has an intentionally raw and industrial aesthetic, features an adjustable seat and a dashboard-like desk with a built-in keyboard and slim Sony monitor, as well as a touch-screen display to control the temperature and sound system of the pod-like mini-office.
A team of seven designers from a consortium of Haworth, Optika Studios, and Digital Image Design came up with "Mind'Space" – a Zen-like version of the cubicle resembling a conch shell that loosely wraps around the worker.
By way of an interface projected onto the unit's wall, metaphorical visual symbols allow users to retrieve data in sensory-appealing ways. For example, e-mails are represented as projected raindrops. A full inbox, therefore, is visualized by a tempest.
"As people, we're analog, and we need tactile and sensual elements in our workspace. That's why we aren't presenting a head-mounted display," said Hai Ng, one of the "Mind'Space" designers. "The digital world has dehumanized us."
The other three commissioned works are more conceptual.
MIT Media Lab's John Maeda and Joe Paradiso, for example, created "Atmosphere," a large-screen display of a "data cloud" controlled by three handheld devices.
Although intended for group presentations at business meetings, the interface used for the exhibition consisted of abstract digital images as expressionistic as a Jackson Pollock painting.
More poetic is the all-white room entitled "personal skies," created by Japan's Naoto Fukasawa and a team from IDEO Tokyo, which included a chair that changes color to match the user's clothing and desks situated under projections of three different skies from which the user could choose.
And Spanish designer Martí Guixé created the show's strangest offering, a purely conceptual piece entitled "h!bye," consisting of 22 edible "seeds" and placebo pills, including a tablet that promises a nomadic worker the ability to "isolate yourself everywhere."
Obviously, Guixé's piece won't be making it into stores. But the other original works created for the show could, conceivably, be commissioned by companies. So could many other designs on view – such as Japanese designer Hiroaki Kitano's translucent, rear-projection table that can be written on, or the Swedish design studio Snowcrash's Net surfer chair which cantilevers a computer screen toward a reclining user.
The exhibition of office wares at the MoMA may boost consumer awareness of their own needs and illustrate what designers are doing to help.
"This show or any other movement that may improve not only the look but function and ergonomics of the office is progress," said Julie Lasky, editor in chief of the design magazine Interiors. "And that there will be some confusion about what's really available is a wonderful reference to what forward-thinking strides designers are making today."
