Mine metsa” sound-absorbing accessories help to organize the spaces inside bigger spaces. These ready-made artefacts can be installed anywhere, creating a customized, comfortable environment for the employees. People spend a lot of their time at work, so they should have to option to adjust their working space for maximum comfort and efficiency. The products are designed in an economically-concious way so that the packaging and shipping is very compact.

1. Space Inside Space

2. Design Studio
Project Report
Spring 2015

3. 4 5
INTRODUCTION
The project was created as cooperation with
the Estonian upholstery company Borg. Borg
started furniture production in year 2004. Their
mission is to offer high-quality and competitive-
ly priced special furniture and their own pro-
duction to companies and private people. The
aim of the project was to propose an innovative
idea that would compliment the company’s
product portfolio, to define a new direction for
the company and the reasoning behind that.

4. Sven Sõrmus
Designer
Supervisor, Estonian Academy of Arts
Janno Nõu
Designer
Supervisor, Tallinn University of Technology
Martin Pärn
Designer
Head of D&E, Estonian Academy of Arts
TEAMTUTORS
6 7

5. 8 9
CONTENTS
Introduction 5
1. Research
2. Borg OÜ
3. Concept Development
4. “Mine metsa”
Puu
Mägi
Mets
A Brief History of the Office
The Future of the Office
Market Research
Product Portfolio
Team
5. Future Developments
7
10
14
16
18
20
26
34
67
22
39
48
59

6. The methodology used for the research was
desk research, questionnaires, interviews and
observations.
We started the project with desk research to
find out the answers to the following questions:
• What are the major trends in furniture nowa-
days?
• What are the major tendances in the mar-
kets?
• What are the major changes in people’s
lifestyles nowadays?
We also planned to map out the different areas
of furniture design that has opportunities for our
project and research new materials and pro-
duction methods for ideas and inspiration. We
created a mindmap (Figure, page 9) to get an
overview of the existing trends.
We discussed the changes in people’s life-
styles, to name a few:
• people are watching less TV and spending
more time in computers
• reading a book is often replaced with a Kin-
dle or an iPad
• there is increasing demand for charging the
various devices
• there are more people working at home
• people are more densely populated
• people are consuming more things which
means the need for compact storage
• people don’t want to wait in queues in
banks, government buildings, etc.
1. RESEARCH
10 11
Image. Coworking in TUT lounge areaImage. Coworking in D&E StudioImage. Coworking space in Rävala street, Tallinn
TRENDS IN FURNITURE DESIGN
Compact furniture
Eco-friendly solutions
Technology
Interactive furniture
Coziness as a reaction
to the fuss of the outside world
Aesthetics
Acoustic solutions
Playful furniture
Customizable
solutions
Round Swing Table
ROOM collections by Erik
Olovsson & Kyuhyung Cho
Individuality
Shapeshifting
Movement
Cozy aesthetics
Pillows
Self-cleaning fabrics
Integration of
device chargers, etc.
LED
Wood
DIY trend
Cork
Non-petrol based fibres
Anti-allergenic
materials
Firewood chair
Modular solutions
Multi-functionality
Bookcase hides furniture
Uncluttered space
Warm colours
Cuddly fabrics
Wood
Wool
Ethnic
Light-toned wood
Elegant simplicity
Scandinavian
Minimalism

7. 12 13
the time a person spends on a task at home
and what are the influencers. Here we can see
that a major area of issues is the amount of
distractions that arise almost every step of the
way. These can be caused by outside factors
but also the person working himself. Basic
needs like having to use the toilet or grab a
meal are distracting factors that tangle with the
focus on the working process.
Next, we decided to make observational re-
search, observing people working in co-work-
ing offices. We made a trip to the rooms of
Mektory. Unfortunately there were very few
people there at the time. We are also observing
the people working in our studio and interview-
We found that because the furniture/uphol-
stery business is such a major area, we should
narrow it down and focus on something more
specific. We chose the area of office furniture
because there is where we thought the biggest
opportunities for Borg might be. Therefore our
research continued in the direction of analysing
the changes in the working culture and office
life.
We created questionnaires for people working
at home or in a coworking office and created
a map that we later named ‘topic map’ which
maps out the emotional qualities that influence
the person working at home. The aim was to
find out how we could improve the quality of
ing everyone we know who have experience
with teleworking. We discovered that TUT’s
Marketing Management lecturer Rene Arvola is
also very familiar with the teleworking subject.
It’s one of his main areas of research. Therefore
we wrote him and he gave us some information
and links to his research.
We also visited Coworking Space Tallinn in
Rävala street. There were only 3 rooms ar-
ranged in a co-working office style. We made
our own observation and also talked with one
of the office workers. Unfortunately there were
few people, some of workers were working
together, some of them separately and in the
third room they had a meeting, like a teamwork
process. We found out that there might be a
need for something that would help a person
be excluded and keep focused, while allowing
an easy change for group work. We created a
layout plan, where we clearly demonstrated the
problems surrounding co-working offices. We
tried to visualize the whole office space: rooms,
kitchen, restroom, wardrobe - and analyzed
what we could improve with the help of Borg.
EMOTIONAL QUALITY
Physical
Communication
Privacy
Furniture
Teleworking
Ergonomics
Multifunctional room
Physical distance
between work and
home
Separate room
Health condition
Sitting too much
Room divider
Storage
Seating
Table
Intellectual
Distractions
Privacy
You
Others
Entertainment
Bodily needs
Toilet
Music
Internet
Books
People
Other noise
Pets
Cats
Dogs Other
Walk
Play
Eat
Aesthetic
Visual
Form
Color
Aesthetics
Color psychology
Light
Artificial
Lamp
Candle
Natural
Daylight
Smelling
Air
Quality
Window
Winter/cold
City smog/dust
From inside
From outside
ToiletFood
Perfume Materials
Nature
Neighbours
Ventilation
Form
Touching
Temperature
Air
Surface
Texture
Surface
Hardness/softness
Sound
Acoustics
Hearing
Noise
Outside
People
Inside
Weather
Street noise
People
Music
Animals
Machines
Family members
Neighbours
Partners
Food
TV

8. Taylorism - American engineer Frederick Tay-
lor was obsessed with efficiency and oversight
and is credited as one of the first people to ac-
tually design an office space. Taylor crowded
workers together in a completely open envi-
ronment while bosses looked on from private
offices, much like on a factory floor.
Bürolandschaft - The German “office land-
scape” brought the socialist values of 1950s
Europe to the workplace: Management was
no longer cosseted in executive suites. Local
arrangements might vary by function—side-
by-side workstations for clerks or pinwheel
arrangements for designers, to make chatting
easier—but the layout stayed undivided.
Action office - Bürolandschaft inspired Her-
man Miller to create a product based on the
new European workplace philosophy. Action-
was the first modular business furniture system,
with low dividers and flexible work surfaces.
It’s still in production today and widely used. In
fact, you probably know Action by its generic,
more sinister name: cubicle.
Cube farm - It’s the cubicle concept taken to
the extreme. As the ranks of middle managers
swelled, a new class of employee was created:
too important for a mere desk but too junior for
a window seat. Facilities managers accommo-
dated them in the cheapest way possible, with
modular walls. The sea of cubicles was born.
Virtual office - Ad agency TBWAChiatDay’s
LA headquarters was a Frank Gehry master-
piece. But the interior, dreamed up by the
company’s CEO, was a fiasco. The virtual office
had no personal desks; you grabbed a laptop
in the morning and scrambled to claim a seat.
Productivity nose-dived, and the firm quickly
became a laughingstock.
Neworking - During the past decade, furniture
designers have tried to part the sea of cubi-
cles and encourage sociability—without going
nuts. Knoll, for example, created systems with
movable, semi-enclosed pods and connected
desks whose shape separates work areas in
lieu of dividers. Most recently, Vitra unveiled
furniture in which privacy is suggested if not
realized. Its large tables have low dividers that
cordon off personal space but won’t guard
personal calls.
1960 1980 2005
19941968 20001904
Taylorism
Bürolandschaft
Action office
Cube farm
Virtual office Networking
First co-working
office opened
A Brief History of the Office
14 15

9. 16 17
Offices are not what they used to be - and
that’s largely a good thing. New technology as
well as changing attitudes and working prac-
tices have led some (especially hip new media
and tech companies) to go all out with the de-
sign of their offices, installing slides, play areas
and even indoor farms.
A great example of this is the Google offices.
No two offices are the same, though visitors to
any office can expect to find a few common
features: murals and decorations expressing
local personality; Googlers sharing cubes, yurts
and “huddles”; video games, pool tables and
pianos; cafes and “microkitchens” stocked with
healthy food; and good old fashioned white-
boards for spur-of-the-moment brainstorming.
The Future of the Office
Google Tel Aviv campusGoogle Dublin campus
Google Dublin campus

10. 18 19
Market Research
In office interior design, acoustic panels and
partitions are the focus with many product
designers. Private pods and informal meeting
spaces are needed The trend of installing wall
panels has increasingly gained popularity as
a great sound proofing treatment. In this, the
decorative wall panels are installed over the
walls and ceilings of a room. These wall panels
help a lot to reduce the sound reverberation
by simply controlling the exterior noise while
absorbing the interior high pitch sound waves.
Thus, they provide the high wuality sound out-
puts that are extremely good, clear and crisp
with no echo.

11. 20 21
2. BORG OÜ
“We are glad to deliver you furniture which is de-
signed to work in harmony with the environment.
Good design is the power to generate innovative
ideas which create real transformation. Continuous
investment into production and product develop-
ment helps to ensure that products are designed
according to customer needs.”
- Mart Jõhvikas, President and CEO of Borg OÜ
Borg OÜ is an Estonian furniture manufactur-
ing and development company that launched
in year 2004 in Tallinn, Estonia. Their furniture
salon is situated in Liivalaia 40 with the compa-
nies Tank, Piel and Sunorek.
Borg’s mission is to offer high-quality made-to-
order furniture with competitive pricing for com-
panies and private customers. Most of Borg’s
production is made-to-order (around 95%).
These products include anything from lounge
suites and footrests to stools and armchairs.
Borg’s clientelle includes hotels (Swissôtel,
Sokos Hotel Viru), banks (SEB, Swedbank),
restaurants (Restaurant Ö, SteakHouse), office
buildings (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and many
other public spaces (Tallinn Airport, VolksWa-
gen, KUMU, etc.)
Recently Borg launched several products with
fascinating acoustic solutions. One of these
products is the new acoustic HAUS (image
above), line of furniture that allows for a good
working environment, and also the opportunity
to be separated. At the same time it’s kind of
a phone speaker, where you can have your
private space for important conversations.
Model “Haus”

12. 22 23
Product Portfolio
Borg’s product portfolio encompasses well
designed artefacts that make living more com-
fortable and beautiful. They are manufacturing
soft funiture - chairs, decorative chairs and
armchairs; sofas, beds and bedends. But also
some wooden furniture (tables, shelves, etc.).
Borg has seen that the new ‘must have’ in the
offices and public spaces at the moment are
acoustic furniture and accessories so they
have also started to design acoustic furni-
ture (“Custo”, “CC”, “Hallo”, page 26-27). Our
recommended improvement for their product
portfolio would be a set of ‘parasite’ products,
accessories that could be easily installed and
put anywhere.
Model “Cona”
Model “Enter”
Model “Rapide”

13. 24 25
Bedend
Model “Custo”
Model “CC”
Model “Hallo”

14. 3. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
We mapped out the areas that emerged during
our research where we could design something
useful.The concept we created tackles most of
them (marked with green above).
We started the sketching process. Here are
all reasons, why we decided to develop our
project in this direction. We visited two creative
studios for our research. First one was Identity
where we met up with Ionel Lehari and asked
for his feedback and also feedback from some
of their employees. Firstly, he invited two peo-
ple from their design team. We explained to
them our ideas and showed the sketches and
asked them to be brutally honest in their feed-
• They would likely use the larger mountain
screens.
• They thought that the christmas tree would
be too much for some offices. It’s too literal
and childish and many people wouldn’t go
there.
• It’s good that it’s such a universal idea and
scalable.
Then, two people from the financial side were
brought in and we had the same conversation.
Their thoughts:
• “The products would have fit in nicely in my
old office in a factory building”
• Mountain shades - why not, maybe
• Christmas tree - it’s so hard to find a private
place to talk on the phone in our office so it
would be very necessary
• ‘Mine metsa’ - it’s not very practical. I
wouldn’t use it. Well, maybe on friday nigth
after the work is done. I would like some
space around my head, I like the tree more.
• Grass - good for creatives, not for us.
• Table - strange and different. The position
wouldn’t be good (too bent forward). It’s de-
finately not something you would have your
first meeting with a person in.
PRIVACY
FOCUSING
STORAGE
ORGANISATION
A QUIET PLACE TO USE THE
PHONE/SKYPE
FLEXIBILITY OF
WORKSPACE
AUDIO/VISUAL
DISTRACTIONS
LACK OF SPACE
• They really liked the cord organiser on the
table and they would definately use this
one.
The second office we visited was Age McCann.
The comments we got there:
• Very cool. Ready made things that can be
installed anywhere.
• They liked the larger mountains. They
thought the smaller ones would go more in
bank offices.
• They often have teams and teamwork and
rarely any meeting tables available so they
really like the table.
• They liked the ‘mine metsa’ as well. They
also have a big problem of not finding a
place to talk on the phone so sometimes
they have to use the restroom for phone
calls. But grass would probably take up a
lot of space.
• Everyone thougth the clothes hanger was
okay and would go nicely with the rest of
the products, but no strong feelings.
The main idea of concept is to create space
in space for offices, emotional value and emo-
tional quality for employes. So we focused on
26 27
back.
Here’s what they thought:
• The overall feedback was positive. There
was laughter at some of the concepts but in
a positive way.
• They liked the nature theme because every-
body can adapt to it. It made them feel safe.
• They thought that they probably wouldn’t
use the small christmas trees as they would
likely need the cover to be behind their
back so others wouldn’t see their work, not
in front of the computer. They have really
used to working head-to-head with the other
designers.

15. nature theme because everybody can adapt
to it. It made people feel safe. Workspace isn’t
flexible enough to quickly adapt to the needs of
the workers. Because we, as much as possible
tried to made emotionally comfortable accesso-
ries for workspace.
The core of the concept was to create poeti-
cal, emotional, playful shapes for offices and
also reduce acoustic and visual distractions.
28 29
Emotions play such a big role in our lives. So
we tried to focus on color, shape and softness.
This ready made things that can be installed
anywhere, and create a comfortable environ-
ment for employees where they can see that
they are spending whole day in office which
gives them opportunity to arrange things in this
way in which they prefer and feel comfortable.

16. 30 31

17. 32 33

18. 34 35
4. “MINE METSA”
“Mine metsa” (‘Go to the forest’) is our pro-
posed new design platform for Borg. The
concept encompasses various acoustic office
accessories, so called parasite products that
can be easily installed into any home or cor-
porate office, university or other place where
efficient work style is needed.
Create new defined spaces in-
side bigger spaces easily.
The base for a productive workplace.
Focus. In order to get your work done as
efficiently as possible you need to be able to
focus. You have an aim and we want to help
you reach it. But it takes more than just a qui-
et box without distractions. We know what it
takes to create a motivating work environment.
“Mine metsa” creates a poetical and playful,
yet functional approach to focusing on what’s
important. Yet tested and functional, it’s more
than just a noise-absorbing product line. The
products immediately become jewels in the
public spaces and office interior designs.
Foreclosure. What “mine metsa” really does,
is it creates new spaces inside bigger spaces.
The tested noise-absorbing structure fights
acoustic distractions while well thought-through
product measurements protect you from visu-
al distratcions. The products are designed to
dampen the noise level and screen off the of-
fice landscape. There are thousands of ways to
combine the products, creating meeting areas,
workstations, phone booths and what ever else
your imagination allows.
Flexibilty. “Mine metsa” sound-absorbing
accessories help to organize the spaces in-
side bigger spaces better. These ready-made
artefacts can be installed anywhere, creating
a customized, comfortable environment for the
employees. People spend a lot of their time at
work, so they should have to option to adjust
their working space for maximum comfort and
efficiency. The products are designed in an
economically-concious way so that the packag-
ing and shipping is very compact.

19. 36 37
To stand out
To create meaningful designs
To excel
36 37

20. 38 39
METS
38 39

21. 40 41
METS (“forest”) is a mountable acoustic ceil-
ing panel system. The panels have 13 soft
hanging strands which are fixed to the panel
with velcro. That makes the strands easily re-
movable and washable. The panels are made
of sound-absorbing materials, which help to
reduce the echo in large office buildings. The
panels can be arranged in various patterns,
which will give customers the opportunity to
create their own dividers or spaces inside big-
ger spaces. METS will be available in various
lengths, suitable for any room height. The pan-
els are standard dropped ceiling panel size
(60x60 cm).
The functions include echo reduction, a quiet
space to make phone calls and acoustic and
visual room dividing.

22. 42 43

23. 44 45

24. 46 47
140 mm
600 mm
600mm
Endless possibilities in combining, creating your own
spaces and separators.
100-4000mm

25. PUU
48 49

26. 50 51
PUU (‘tree’) is an acoustic space divider. It
consist of three parts which can be layed on
top of each other, creating a spruce-tree-like
artefact. It’s made of thick felt which is rein-
forced with sound-absorbing materials. The
triangular parts can be layed on top of each
other vertically or manipulated to create wind-
blown playful shapes. The triangles come with
a wooden construction which helps the tree to
stand tall and sturdy. The ready-made height
of the tree is 150 cm. The parts are designed
in a way so that the shipping is economical
and safe, as the parts can be pocketed inside
each other.
PUU is a great way to separate working sta-
tions, it’s easy to move and will quickly create
new spaces inside bigger spaces where em-
ployees can focus on their working process.

27. 52 53

28. 54 55
550 mm
800 mm
1000 mm
400 mm
400mm
910mm

29. 56 57

30. MAGI
58 59

31. 60 61
MAGI (‘mountain’) is an acoustic table screen.
It is a flexible workspace divider which con-
sists of five panels that allow the screen to take
the shape required. It is easily foldable and
storable. It’s gives people the opportunity to
save space and create their own working area,
without visual distractions, which adds emo-
tional quality to the working process.
The length of MAGI is 110 cm and the average
height 45 cm. It is made of thick felt fabric,
insulated with sound-absorbing materials. The
velcro triangles in each end of MAGI enable to
create longer mountain ranges for group work
or other use cases.

32. 62 63

33. 64 65
110 mm
45mm

34. 66 67
5. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The products themselves are not yet ready to
be marketed. What has been created during
this project is a design platform for Borg’s
future products. This is in a conceptual stage
and future developments are needed. In this
chapter we will propose a few ways of continu-
ing with the product development.
Firstly, we have worked out manufacturing pro-
cesses for the three products which we chose
to prototype. These are not ideal, though. The
manufacturig process could be made more
efficient and increase the product quality.
Secondly, for prototyping cheap, available
material were used. We suggest a thorough
market research for available similar materials
that would have good acoustic properties, as
well as soft, natural feel.
Lastly, before launching the product line, we
recommend proper acoustic testing to get
precise data as we believe this would give
the company the edge to succeed in the vast
market.
We hope that Borg will see the same potential
in the products that we do and that proper R&D
and marketing will pay off in profit.

35. 68 69