Start-ups, rejoice! Your office furniture can now grow at the same rate as your company. Joe Gebbia, cofounder of Airbnb, and Bernhardt Design unveiled Neighborhood, a line of modular, flexible office furniture, at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York this week.
The entire 38-module collection is based around two “building block” designs: a high-backed seat for noise control and a low-backed one for open conversations. Inspired by Airbnb’s need for office furniture that can adapt to any space, the zigzag-stitched modules can form myriad furniture configurations to accommodate differing office sizes, meeting types, and employee preferences.
The goal of the collaboration was to provide “comfortable, flexible solutions for the evolving workplace,” said Gebbia, an industrial design graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, in a statement. Neighborhood’s integration of work surface options on sofa ends, stand-alone tabletops, technology ports, and the choice of noise-absorbing materials do just that.
“Joe’s idea of using two simple building blocks to create an entire community of flexible products was ingenious,” states Bernhardt Design president Jerry Helling. “The beauty of the line is that it is easily and instantly adaptable by the people using it.” He’s right: Eschewing the need for a maintenance team, installation is literally a snap—almost as easy as booking new digs on Airbnb.
