Office desks have traditionally been large, rectangular and made from wood. Modern materials and designs have produced significant advances in the office furniture environment.

Home Office Desk

Firstly the shape - symmetrical and asymmetrical wave shapes have evolved to cater for personal computers and terminals. Initially these were often 80-100 cm deep to cater for CRT type screens, but modern desks can now be significantly less deep, thanks to flat screen technology. Monitors are now so light and thin that they can be suspended from tool bars attached to the desk or mounted on a pole fixed to the desk. In addition to the basic shape of the desk, most office furniture ranges are available with a wide selection of returns, with or without storage. Rectangular bench type desks are now becoming available in office furniture catalogs so that shared legs can be used to create a more efficient space at less cost. This configuration is often used in call centers and other densely populated office environments, eg software development centers.

Home Office Desk

Secondly, the modern office desk is now unlikely to be made from wood. Modern materials such as melamine and HPC offer very good looking finishes which are not restricted to wood effect and which are much more resistant to scratches and coffee cups, as well as being virtually maintenance-free. Melamine and HPC desks are available in all the standard wood-effect finishes, eg beech, maple, cherry etc and are also available in a stylish range of finishes to match any office décor, eg black, white, grey, marble etc. You should also think about the thickness of the desktop material, some cheap desks can be very thin and flimsy.

Thirdly, most office desks now have at least a PC and a telephone, and often peripheral equipment like printers, scanners etc. These require a lot of cables to power and to connect this electrical equipment and this can often lead to untidy and messy work areas. Many modern desks now have built-in cable management facilities in the legs and in the central beam so that all these untidy cables can be hidden away. Floor boxes for power, dat and telephone connections can also help to keep things tidy. Some desk now even have built-in sockets which usually include both power and RJ45 sockets. These are ideal desks for mobile workers who come in to the office with their laptop computers from time to time.

Finally, the most recent innovation in office desks is height-adjustability. The best height-adjustable desks are electrically controlled so that you can adjust the desk height at the touch of a button, but manual height adjustable desks can also be obtained. These are usually of the fit-and-forget type, which require tools for adjustments.

So, if you are looking for a 21st century office desk, don't forget to think about your computer layout, cable management, the work surface and the possibility of electric height adjustability.

An Office Desk For the 21st Century

Home Office Desk